Birgül Akolpoglu is a scientific project manager at the Scientific Coordination Office (SCO) and Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) Coordinator at MPI-IS.

Before joining SCO, Birgül was a doctoral researcher at the Physical Intelligence Department, where she worked on microalgae and bacteria-based microrobots for biomedical applications. Birgül received her doctoral degree (Dr. sc. ETH) in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in 2023. After completing her doctoral degree, she continued as a postdoctoral researcher in the same department briefly.

In her free time, Birgül enjoys reading and writing, and she wrote and edited articles for The Offspring Magazine of the MPI PhDnet and Materials Research Society (MRS) Bulletin. She previously served as PhD student representative at MPI Stuttgart campus.