Abdu Arslanyilmaz awarded YSU’s James P. Tressel Endowed Chair in Leadership

Abdu Arslanyilmaz, chair and professor of Computer Science, Information & Engineering Technology, has been selected to receive the James P. Tressel Endowed Chair in Leadership at Youngstown State University.

The endowed chair was created in 2021 through a $1.6 million gift from a group of YSU Foundation trustees in recognition of Tressel’s leadership at YSU and across the region. The honor is bestowed annually on a YSU department chair with an established record of outstanding leadership. The award also comes with a stipend and expenses to support development and growth of the department.

“We would like to extend our congratulations to Professor Arslanyilmaz on receiving the prestigious Tressel Endowed Chair in Leadership Award, a testament to his remarkable efforts in boosting enrollment and working with his faculty to ensure student success,” said Jennifer Pintar, interim provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. “His dedication to excellence has not only enhanced the department but has also shaped the futures of so many graduates.”

Arslanyilmaz earned his master’s degree at the University of Missouri and his Ph.D. at Texas A&M, joining YSU as faculty in 2007.

Upon receiving the award, Arslanyilmaz said he was “committed to further contributing to the improvement of students, faculty, and the institution at large,” he continued, “I will increase my efforts to be worthy of this recognition. I am genuinely appreciative of being chosen for this award.”

Arslanyilmaz’s research focuses on computational thinking and autonomous transportation. His teachings include client and server-side programming, e-commerce programming, databases, data science, advanced multimedia authoring and system configuration & maintenance.

Since joining YSU, he secured highly competitive funding, nearing $280,000 from the National Science Foundation as the PI for a research and development project entitled, “ISAC: Involve Students in Computing.” Through multiple internal and external funding sources such as the DRIVE PX 2 GPU Platform from NVIDIA, he has established a simulated autonomous driving lab with in-house software developed to investigate issues related to autonomous transportation such as hazard warning systems, hazard perception, heads-up display and routing algorithms for autonomous vehicles and smart cities.

Arslanyilmaz has published over 20 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, predominantly as the first author, in line with his research focus. He has also been awarded the Research Professorship in 2011, 2017 and 2019, and was awarded Distinguished Professor in Scholarship in 2021 and Distinguished Professor in Service in 2022.