Meliha TERZİOĞLU 1915 – 1995

She was born in 1915 in Soma, Manisa. After completing her secondary education in İstanbul American Girls' College, she completed her higher education in Wellesley College in USA and her doctorate in Yale University Medical School. In 1938, she started to work at the Chair of Physiology of Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine. She did not separate her scientific attitude from her private life and continued her studies with integrity. She became associate professor in 1944 and became professor in 1949 which made her “Turkey's first female faculty member”. In addition to her studies on the development of the field of physiology, she also played an important role in the participation of biophysics courses in the faculty of medicine and in the establishment of biophysical sciences / departments in many faculties, and this discipline was established in the country. Initiatives for this purpose led to the inclusion of biophysics in the curriculum to the Istanbul Medical Faculty in 1963. She took an active role in the establishment of Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty and continued her services there. She was the chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics until biophysics was separated as a separate department. She retired in 1984. Some of her Works are Physiology Courses (with Hans Winterstein), Physiology Textbook, Physiology Textbook (with Prof. Lütfi Çakar), and Physiology Praktikum.