Born in Konya in 1966, Professor Mehmet Emin Birpinar graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering of Yıldız Technical University in İstanbul. He completed the master’s degree and PhD in the Department of Civil Engineering of Yıldız Technical University. He also completed the master’s degree on civil engineering in Italy in 1991 and in the Delft University of Technology in Netherlands in 1994. Being assigned as Professor in 2009, he is also a faculty member at Yıldız Technical University.
Being appointed as the Deputy Undersecretary to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization in 2013, prior to this post, Professor Birpınar held the position of the Provincial Director of Istanbul in the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization (2011-2012) and in the former Ministry of Environment and Forestry (2003-2011).
Professor Birpınar was elected as the President of the Bureau of the Barcelona Convention for the term of 2014-2015 in the 18th Meeting of the Contracting Parties held in Istanbul in December 2013.
On 9th April 2015, Professor Birpınar was also assigned as the chief negotiator to represent Turkey during the international climate change negotiations held within the scope of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Being a member of the Water Engineering Research and Development Centre (WERDEC), International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Professor Birpınar is also a member of the board of directors in several institutions and foundations. He has published more than a hundred articles or scientific papers in national and international congresses or scientific magazines. He also deals with writing articles for newspapers.
