I was born in Kirklareli (Turkey) in 1978 as the son of Yalcin Yilmazkuday (my father) and Yildiz Yilmazkuday (my mother). I also have a sister, Canan Yilmazkuday. Now, I am married to Demet Ulker and we have a daughter, Ada. Below is a background describing my academic profile, in detail, before Vanderbilt.

I studied elementary school in Kirklareli Ataturk Elementary School and middle school in Kirklareli Anatolian High School. After middle school, I managed to enroll at Ankara High School of Science – a prestigious high school, founded by American Professors at the late 1960’s, which follows a curriculum that emphasizes mathematics, physics and chemistry. The rigorous mathematics training that I had gone through in high school has given me a competitive edge in all the quantitative courses I took in my undergraduate and graduate studies. The three years of dormitory life experience has been another valuable gain for me. I had many friends from different regions of Turkey. Getting to know interesting young people from various socio-cultural backgrounds helped me appreciate the cultural diversity of my country. However, studying away from home also requires one to be self-sufficient. Going through such an experience at an earlier age would make my university life in Istanbul much easier than it would otherwise have been. My hard work in high school and my good ranking in the national college entrance exams allowed me to enroll at Istanbul Bilgi University receiving full scholarship in November 1996.

At Istanbul Bilgi University, I was given the opportunity to enroll in the the Honours Programme, which follows the same curriculum as the University of London’s external program in economics. I had to take the exams of both Istanbul Bilgi University and the University of London. The University of London exams are held once a year and make-up exams are not offered even when extenuating circumstances exist. That is, if I had failed a course, either at Istanbul Bilgi University or at the University of London, I would have to register only for that course in the following year and sit its final exam at the end of that year. This idiosyncrasy of the program put a great pressure on me and other students during the whole year. Completing the program in just four years has substantially reinforced my confidence in my academic abilities.

After I graduated from the Diploma Program of the University of London (the first year of undergraduate studies at the University of London), I had to choose a path of specialization, either Business or Economics. And, I chose Economics. My performance and ability at mathematics and economics lectures had been most influential in my decision. Following my enrollment at the economics program of the University of London, I began to enjoy Economics more and more when I took second-year and third-year courses such as Macroeconomics, Econometrics, Further Mathematics and International Economics. These courses encouraged me to choose economics as a career path and I have decided to apply for a Master’s program in Economics.

The MA in Economics at Marmara University is a two-year program, which consists of one-year coursework and a thesis that usually lasts for two semesters. I received my MA degree in Economics by June 2003, since I have passed all courses and already finished my dissertation on Inflation Targeting. My main motivation in choosing inflation targeting is that some of the topics that I have studied in such courses as Macroeconomic Theory and Methods in Dynamic Economics have shifted my interest towards monetary economics. Since high inflation has always been an ever-lasting phenomenon in the Turkish Economy, I have begun to read more on inflation. I have come to decide that the primary field of specialization in my graduate studies has to be on macroeconomics, especially on monetary economics. This is why I wish to pursue my doctoral studies at a university that will allow me to specialize in this field of economics.

Ironically, despite all the interesting courses that I have taken in economics, I learned more on economics during my employment as a teaching assistant at the MBA Programs of Istanbul Bilgi University. My professors suggested that I would definitely benefit from the teaching experience that such a position provides if I were to follow an academic career. This is when I have begun to challenge many of the principles of economics that I have taken for granted when I had first confronted them. As a teaching assistant, I had to grade coursework and exam papers, and most difficult of all, I had to conduct tutorial sessions. In an attempt to provide students with examples that explain how economics applies to real world issues, I have realized that economics is one of the few disciplines (if not the only one) that are capable of explaining human behavior and the incentives that influence it. Moreover, economics is a policy science in the sense that it aims to provide solutions. No other field of social sciences assumes such a hard task as economics does. I believe that economics explains and tries to improve life more than any other social science. Because of this, I planned to improve myself more and more in economics and I applied for Ph.D. in Economics at Vanderbilt University. Now I am a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University.