PhD: Defended!

Alhamdulillah wa Syukurillah, a phrase that I have been reciting for the past few days. It is an arabic phrase that means “Praise belongs to Allah and all thanks to Allah”.

On Friday, 11 June 2021, I successfully defended my PhD Thesis! It’s been my lifelong dream and finally, on that day, I became Dr. Muhammad Arif. :) The defense was really interesting and, I would say now, fun. I had an amazing faculty opponent (Prof. Dr. Thomas Sauter) and evaluation committee members (Dr. Claudia Kutter, Assoc. Prof. Marc Friedländer, and Dr. David Moyes) in my defense, which made the discussions to be really good and interesting!

This PhD journey has been really exciting, fun, and enjoyable. I’ve heard this cliché many times, but it’s true, “finding good PhD advisors is more important than finding a good PhD place or project”. I was very lucky to get all 3: amazing supervisors, group, and projects!

I have an amazing principal supervisor, Adil Mardinoglu, that supports me constantly, both as a supervisor and as a friend. Not only that, I was lucky enough to have Prof. Dr. Mathias Uhlén as my co-supervisor, one of the most prominent figures in this field, with all his experience and amazing vision. There are too many people that I would like to mention and thank that I cannot mention one by one. I wrote some of them on the “Acknowledgements” section of my thesis (below), but for sure, this still cannot cover everyone.

If you are interested to read my thesis, you can get it free from this link. And here’s my presentation.

This chapter is one of the best and exciting chapters of my life. Now, I’m looking forward to starting the new challenge in October 2021, which I have been very fortunate to be able to secure a few months ago.

Here’s to a better future for everyone!