Born May 20, 1949 in Istanbul, graduated from the German School of Istanbul where he was also captain of school gymnastics team. (1960-68).
He won the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Scholarship for chemistry studies at the University of Goettingen. He obtained his Ph.D. degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1977 under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Armin de Meijere. The title of his thesis was "Cyclobutyl Neighboring Group Effect on the Bridgehead Reactivity of Bridged Bicyclic Systems". After post-doctoral research with professors W. Adam (University of Puerto Rico, 1977-79), A. de Meijere (University of Hamburg, 1979-80) and Lawrence T. Scott at (University of Nevada, Reno, 1980-81) he joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at San Francisco State University as an assistant professor. He became full professor of organic chemistry at SFSU in 1989. He was a NATO visiting scholar at the University of Hamburg in summer 1986, and spent a sabbatical year at IBM Almaden Research Center with Dr. R. D. Miller in 1989-90. He has been a member of the ACS since 1981. He is also a member of the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry.

Over the years his research has been funded by grants from Research Corporation, Petroleum Research Fund, National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, NATO and DAAD.