Turkish scientist Dağdeviren hosts Hawking at Harvard

Turkish materials scientist Canan Dağdeviren hosted famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking at Harvard University on Tuesday and shared a picture that was taken of her with Hawking via her Twitter account. "It was truly phenomenal to host one of my heroes, Prof. Hawking at [the] Harvard Society this evening" her tweet read.

"It was truly my privilege to listen [to] Prof. Hawking! Let the stars shine deeply," she added. Hawking's lecture focused on "his research into black holes and the information paradox." The information paradox suggests that "physical information is permanently lost in such holes, a controversial notion that violates the scientific tenet that information about a system from one time can be used to understand its state at any other time," explained a report on Harvard's website. "It is said that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of black holes," Hawking said during his lecture. "Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers, but they are clearly matters of science fact," he added.

Canan Dağdeviren, the first scientist from Turkey to be named as a junior fellow by the Society of Fellows (SoF) at Harvard University and known for her award-winning "battery-free cardiac pacemaker" project, has been recently invited to join the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dağdeviren, 32, was named on the "Forbes 30 under 30 in Science" list and also the "Innovators under 35" by the MIT Technology Review last year. She received a Fulbright Doctoral Grant in 2009 and received a PhD. in material science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.