Professor Mays Speaks at Istanbul Technical University

On Tuesday 7/25/2023, civil engineering Professor David Mays presented an invited seminar at Istanbul Technical University entitled, “Out of chaos comes engineered injection and extraction.” This seminar presented a new approach to groundwater remediation hydraulics, based on creating flows that manipulate solute plumes by stretching and folding—the essence of chaotic advection. The seminar title was manipulated from the classic phrase, “Out of chaos comes order,” attributed to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the seminar was hosted by Professor Elif Pehlivanoğlu Mantaş, whom Professor Mays met in the late 1990s during graduate student orientation at the University of California Berkeley.

“It was truly and honor and a privilege to be invited to present this work in Istanbul,” writes Professor Mays, “where so many things are different from CU Denver, and yet so many things are the same.” For example, the geographic setting, the food, and especially the ubiquitous tea are all quite different from Denver.

On the other hand, many things were the same: The seminar format, the university setting, and the spirit of engineering with creativity and rigor. Professor Mays was particularly delighted to come across steel bridges and a concrete canoe from the same student competitions that he used to guide as faculty advisor for CU Denver’s student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Another common factor with Denver is English, which—luckily for Professor Mays—is the standard language at ITU for communication with non-Turkish scholars. “I started my seminar by saying merhaba, which means hello, and thanking everyone for their permission to give this seminar in English, even though we were gathered in Türkiye. By the end of the trip, I had one more word, tamam, which means okay. Turkish people say tamam a lot.”

Professor Mays thanks the U.S. National Science Foundation for supporting the research reported in this seminar, and the E.U. Erasmus+ Program for supporting his travel expenses.