Yakup Niyazi is a Research Fellow – Marine Geoscientist and Hydrographic Surveyor at the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, The University of Western Australia, Australia. Before pursuing an academic career, he worked as an oil field engineer for three years after obtaining his Batchelor degree in Geological Engineering. As a child grew up in a small oasis city at the margin of the great Taklamakan Desert, his passion for seeing and exploring the ocean inspired him to study marine science. He received his MSc degree in Marine Geoscience from the University of Haifa, Israel and his PhD from Deakin University, Australia. He acquires, processes, and interprets hydroacoustic datasets to investigate the geological and geomorphological evolution of seafloor. His research mainly involves mapping the deep (sub)seafloor and quantitative interpretation of submarine geomorphology using acoustic imaging techniques and geospatial analysis to understand the regional and global context of deep-sea geomorphological and geological processes. He also investigates the deep-sea habitat and its role in shaping the benthic communities, using multibeam echosounder bathymetric and acoustic backscatter data integrating with situ video observations. In 2018, he won the prestigious American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ Carlos Walter M. Campos Memorial Award for Best International Student Paper. In 2020, as a member of the Deakin Marine Mapping Group, he was awarded the prestigious Australian Museum Eureka Prize for a world-first initiative that monitors the health of Victoria’s coastline. He is on the editorial board of Geomorphica, a diamond open-access journal that publishes on geomorphology in general. He is an active member of globally recognised geoscience professional societies including the Geological Society of Australia and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
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