Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahmakıran graduated from the Department of Chemistry (English) of the Faculty of Science at Abant İzzet Baysal University in 2002 with high honours, ranking first in his department and faculty. He completed his master's degree in 2005 and his doctorate in 2010 at the Department of Chemistry of Middle East Technical University, again with high honours.
During his doctoral studies, Zahmakıran worked for one year each as a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan and at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination in France; after his doctorate, he carried out research on Atomic Layer Deposition at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Yuriy Roman.
Focusing in his work on metal nanoparticles, metal-organic frameworks, porous materials and heterogeneous catalysis, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahmakıran has been awarded, for his contributions to these fields, the METU Mustafa Parlar Foundation Young Researcher Award, the İTÜ FABED Young Researcher Award, the Alexander von Humboldt-Georg Forster Research Fellowship, the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) GEBİP Award, the Science Academy BAGEP Award, the TÜBİTAK Science Incentive Award and the İlim Yayma Engineering, Natural and Health Sciences Award. Continuing to provide R&D and product development consultancy to leading companies in the sector within the scope of university-industry cooperation, Zahmakıran serves as a member of the advisory board of TÜBİTAK-BİDEB and as an associate member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences.