Who is PROF. DR. MUSTAFA İNAN? Below, you will be able to find information about Prof. Dr. Mustafa İnan whose name was given after the main library of ITU. All information below is derived from the novel of Oğuz Atay, "Bir Bilim Adamının Romanı" published by İletişim Publishing House.
Mustafa İnan – His Life and Academic Career
Mustafa İnan was born in Adana, in 1911. His father was a postman and his mother was a housewife. Following his graduation of highschool in Adana, he applied Mühendis Mektebi (Engineering School which was named as ITU in the folloing yeras). He received the first among others in the entrance exam of Mühendis Mektebi.
He graduated from this school in the first rank as well and he continued his studies in Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Switzerland, one of the best among the universities of engineering field in the world. Although he was offered position at ETH upon finishing his PhD, he refused this offer and in 1941, came back to Turkey to work in Mühendis Mektebi.
In 1944, he married Jale Ogan who was the daughter of Aziz Ogan, archeologist and director of museums in Turkey. Jale İnan became the first female archeologist of Turkey and the couple had a son named Hüseyin.
His academic work was highly attributed among the academic community. For instance, in his book “Einführüng in die Baustatik”, Ernst Chwalla referred the dissertation of İnan and his article which he wrote in 1943.
İnan served as the head of Civil Engineering Faculty between 1954-57 and became the rector of Istanbul Technical University between 1957-59. He was offered the undersecretary position for the development of technical education at the Ministry of Education while he was also offered the Ministry of Public Works. However, he refused these positions since he preferred teaching and doing research in the university.
Besides his valuable work in the field of engineering, he was also an intellectual who had wide range of fields of interest, especially literature and linguistics. Although he could not publish his research on the Arabic, Persian, Greek, Jewish words and their meaninings, he wrote an article named “Linguistics and Mathematics”.
In 1967, while he was in Germany for reserach, he was taken to the hospital due to his illness which had already started in Turkey. Although he received medical treatment for his illness, he passed away in Germany, in 1967 on the 5th of August.