Embedded Files
Media Coverage (Chronicle Live & Daily Mail) [01-May-2026]
Chronicle Live and Daily Mail have featured Dr Oktay Cetinkaya’s "Waste-Not!" project, highlighting its use of AI-enabled sensor technology to detect food spoilage and support households in reducing waste. The coverage emphasises the system’s potential to improve decision-making around food safety while cutting costs and environmental impact.
Details: Chronicle article & Daily Mail article
Early Career Researcher Award! [30-April-2026]
Dr Oktay Cetinkaya has been recognised as the winner in the Early Career Researcher category at Newcastle University's Engagement and Place Awards 2026 for his project "Waste-Not!". Dr Cetinkaya received his award from the Vice-Chancellor and President of Newcastle University, Professor Chris Day.
The awards celebrate impactful collaboration with diverse publics, highlighting how research and teaching extend beyond the University. The Early Career Researcher category recognises innovative and meaningful engagement practices led by researchers in the early stages of their careers.
Details: E&P Awards page
University Press Release [29-April-2026]
Newcastle University has published a press release on Dr Oktay Cetinkaya’s "Waste-Not!" project, highlighting its approach to reducing household food waste through sensor-driven monitoring and data-informed interventions.
Details: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2026/04/wastenot/
New Funding Secured! [23-April-2026]
Dr Cetinkaya, together with his colleague Dr Abderrahmen Trichili (Northumbria University), has secured £65k of Lift Off Fund from the North East Space Communications Accelerator (NESCA) for their submission "SLIPT-X: Simultaneous Lightwave Information and Power Transfer with Drone Activation and Satellite Backhaul for Secure Remote Sensing."
NESCA is a £2.5M EPSRC-funded initiative advancing resilient space communications, with a focus on commercialisation and regional impact around key innovation themes including: Technologies, Space Sustainability, In-Space Opportunities, Terrestrial Applications and Smart & Resilient Networks.
Details: NESCA homepage
Highly Commended in the 2026 Hawley Award for Engineering Innovation! [23-March-2026]
As part of the 2026 Hawley Award for Engineering Innovation, Dr Oktay Cetinkaya’s project "Waste-Not!" has been Highly Commended (Top 10%) by the judging panel.
In the Letter of Commendation, the panel outlined that Dr Cetinkaya's presentation: ‘ […] was rated as excellent and demonstrated a deep understanding of their approach and its relevance to a net-zero future.’
The Hawley Award was established in 2006 by the Worshipful Company of Engineers, a London Livery Company, via the Engineers Trust.
Details: Hawley Award prospectus
New Funding Secured! [09-March-2026]
Dr Cetinkaya has secured £10k of Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) from the UKRI for his submission "Waste-Not! -Phase II: Cross-Sector Engagement and Partnership Development for Edible Food Waste Reduction."
HEIF supports knowledge exchange between higher education providers and the wider world that benefits society and the economy.
Details: UKRI HEIF Fund
Most Downloaded and Most Cited Paper of 2024 - IEEE JSAS [18-February-2026]
Dr Cetinkaya's article “MASTER: Machine Learning-Based Cold Start Latency Prediction Framework in Serverless Edge Computing Environments for Industry 4.0,” published in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Sensors (JSAS), has been recognised as the Most Downloaded and Most Cited Paper of 2024.
The paper is currently highlighted on the front page of the official JSAS website: https://ieee-jsas.org/
Full text:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10517641
CONNECTS-UK Closing Event – Panel Participation [17-February-2026]
Dr Cetinkaya participated as a panellist at the CONNECTS-UK Closing Event held at Queen Mary University of London. The discussion focused on the benefits of participation in CONNECTS-UK activities and the programme’s impact on EU–UK research collaboration and sustained international partnerships.
Details: CONNECTS-UK press release
NERF Feb 2026 Meeting – Presentation [12-February-2026]
Dr Cetinkaya returned to the North East Recycling Forum (NERF), following his Newcomer of the Year Award in November 2025, to present the Waste-Not! project at their February meeting held at Bede Tower, Sunderland, outlining its AI-enabled odour sensing technology for food waste monitoring and reduction.
Details:
https://www.nerf.org.uk/meeting-schedule/nerf-meeting-feb-2026
YTU AESK Workshop Talks – Inaugural Session [08-January-2026]
The inaugural session of AESK Workshop Talks, a new seminar series organised by the Yıldız Technical University Alternative Energy Systems Club (AESK), featured Dr Oktay Cetinkaya as the first invited speaker. The session focused on experience sharing and discussion around academic and professional pathways, and attracted strong student engagement.
Further sessions with different speakers are planned as part of the series. The recording of the session is available online on YouTube (in Turkish).
Research Seminar at Ozyegin University [25-December-2025]
As part of the OKATEM Research Seminar Series, organised by Dr Mohammed Elamassie, Dr Oktay Cetinkaya delivered a seminar at Özyeğin University, Istanbul, Turkey.
The talk focused on the core research challenges addressed by the Waste-Not! project, including reliable food freshness assessment, data fusion across sensing and contextual signals, and translating technical outputs into actionable household decisions. Dr Cetinkaya also discussed the recently launched trial, early deployment considerations, and lessons emerging from real-world use.
Details: Dr Elamassie's LinkedIn post.
Newcomer of the Year Award! [18-November-2025]
Dr Cetinkaya received the Newcomer of the Year award at the North East Recycling Forum (NERF) Awards 2025.
The Panel noted:
"The judges were particularly impressed by Oktay's ability to see waste differently and to bring a new audience into the conversation around reuse and sustainability. His project (Waste-Not!) stood out for its innovation, its scalability, and its exciting potential to grow into something that could transform how we engage communities with circular-economy principles."
Editorial Board Appointment [02-November-2025]
Dr Cetinkaya has been appointed to the Editorial Board of IEEE Sensors Letters as an Associate Editor. IEEE Sensors Letters is a leading rapid-publication journal that disseminates high-impact advances across all areas of sensors and sensing technologies.
CrossLinks Launched at St Cross College, Oxford! [17-October-2025]
The CrossLinks programme has been officially launched at St Cross College, University of Oxford, as part of the College’s 60th Anniversary Campaign. Conceived by Dr Oktay Cetinkaya and Dr Ricardo Márquez Gómez, the initiative aims to transform spontaneous cross-disciplinary discussions among Oxford researchers into structured collaborations with tangible outcomes.
Developed through extensive planning and coordination, CrossLinks strives for a lasting framework to foster collaborative research within the St Cross community and strengthen the College’s culture of interdisciplinary engagement.
Details: https://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/crosslinks
New preprint! [14-October-2025]
Our collaborative paper 'A Toolkit for Sustainable Educational Environment in the Modern AI Era: Guidelines for Mitigating the Misuse of GenAI in Assessments' has been released on TechRxiv.
To access the full text, please follow this link.
Silver Prize at IEEE FENDT 2025! [23-June-2025]
Dr Yang received the Silver Prize for their paper titled "Remote Field Eddy Current and Swept Frequency Eddy Current Techniques for Lamppost Corrosion Detection" at the IEEE 2025 Far East Conference on Nondestructive Testing (FENDT), held from 23 to 26 June 2025 in Wuhan, China.
This recognition highlights the promise of our I-PEACE project and reinforces our commitment to advancing research in electromagnetic-based nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E).
Many congratulations, Jingyuan!
Details: Dr Yang's LinkedIn post.
Workshop Attendance [01-May-2025]
Dr Cetinkaya will be attending The Future of Semiconductors workshop in Zürich on 23 May 2025, organised by the EPSRC eFutures Network+.
This one-day event will bring together leading researchers from across the UK and Europe to explore the evolving landscape of semiconductor technologies and to spark new cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Details: https://efutures2.com/event/the-future-of-semiconductors-zurich-workshop/
Paper Accepted! [07-April-2025]
Our collaborative paper 'Information-theoretic Lifetime Maximization for IoBNT-enabled Sensing' has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications.
Best Talk Award at CONNECTS-UK European Researchers Event! [31-March-2025]
Dr Cetinkaya received the Best Talk Award at the 2nd European Researchers in the UK event, organised by CONNECTS-UK and hosted at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. His winning presentation introduced "Waste-Not!", his charity-funded project aimed at reducing household food waste through networked sensor innovation and community sharing. The award recognised the project's real-world impact and Dr Cetinkaya's contribution to research with strong societal relevance. The event brought together researchers from across the UK and Europe, providing a valuable platform for future scientific collaboration.
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