Prof. Dr. Erhan Karaesmen Prof. Dr. Erhan Karaesmen (27 April 1936, İzmir – 23 July 2024) was a distinguished scholar who made significant contributions to the development of modern civil engineering education in Türkiye and brought together the worlds of engineering, art, culture, and intellectual thought. He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at İstanbul Technical University in 1959 with the degree of Civil Engineer. Immediately after graduation, he moved to Europe, where he pursued engineering work in Switzerland and France, and in 1965 completed his doctorate in Applied Sciences at the Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1966, upon the invitation of then-rector Kemal Kurdaş, he joined the Department of Civil Engineering at Middle East Technical University, where he began an academic career spanning more than half a century. He served as department chair from 1970 to 1971 and carried out pioneering work in earthquake engineering, prefabricated structures, prestressed concrete, and structural design, making substantial contributions to the establishment of earthquake engineering as an academic discipline in Türkiye. In 1978, he served as the first and only Undersecretary of the Ministry of Local Governments. Throughout his academic career, he also taught at Boğaziçi University and various other higher education institutions. At METU and across Türkiye, he guided generations of students not only professionally but also in their cultural and intellectual development. Authoring nearly 800 scientific, technical, and cultural publications, Karaesmen was recognized for his multidisciplinary contributions to engineering, architecture, art, music, and literature. In 2009, he was awarded the TÜYAP Istanbul Art Fair Critics’ Honor Award. Prof. Dr. Erhan Karaesmen passed away on 23 July 2024, leaving behind an enduring academic legacy defined by scholarly excellence, humanistic values, and the generations he inspired.
