Defne Ertugrul

Elected: June 2025
Membership grade: Student Member

As an IChemE Student Ambassador, Defne actively engages with students to increase awareness of industry trends and professional development opportunities. She has organised networking events, speaker panels, and mentoring initiatives to strengthen connections between students and professionals.

Defne has a strong background in event organisation. As part of IChemE’s student initiatives, she has worked on organising career panels, technical talks, and networking sessions to help students engage with industry professionals. She is also an organiser for ICHack, Europe’s largest student-led hackathon, where she manages logistics, partnerships, and participant experience for a 1,000+ attendee event. Additionally, as TEDxImperial speaker co-ordinator, Defne has coordinated high-profile speakers for conferences that inspire thought leadership in engineering and beyond. 

In research, she has worked on carbon capture at Imperial College London, contributed to fluid dynamics studies at Koç University, and explored thermodynamic modelling at Kadir Has University. As a lab technician at CO2llect, she is involved in hydrogel testing for CO2 sequestration, furthering her commitment to sustainable engineering.