İrfan Koca

Irfan Koca holds a BSc degree in Physics Engineering from Hacettepe University. In addition, he took some courses from the METU nuclear engineering master's program as a special student. He started his career in the nuclear field in 1983 as a project engineer at the Turkish Electricity Authority (TEK) Nuclear Power Plants Department, and later took an active role in the evaluation studies of the nuclear power plant tenders at that time as the chief engineer. Between 1988 and 2016, he served for many years as a nuclear safety and security expert, Head of Nuclear Safety Department, Head of Research and Development Department at the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK). Between 2002 and 2009, he served as Scientific Counselor of Turkey to the IAEA in Vienna. During this period, he represented Turkey in numerous technical and political meetings held within the IAEA and in events held in New York, Geneva, and Vienna within the scope of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). While he was the Head of Nuclear Safety Department, he represented Turkey in the Committee on the Nuclear Installations Safety (CSNI), operating under the OECD NEA, and in the Council work of CERN (Geneva) and SESAME (Amman) organizations during his time as the Head of the R&D Department. During his nuclear career, he attended many international training courses, workshops, congresses, conferences, etc. He also completed a 1-year on-the-job training program at AECL company from 1989 to 1990, on safety analysis of CANDU-3 NPP in Toronto, Canada. After his retirement in November 2016, he gave consultancy to the Japanese company MHI in the field of nuclear safety and licensing during the feasibility studies of the Sinop NPP project. Since 2017, he has also worked as a consultant in the business development studies of the Spanish company IDOM in the Turkish and Middle East nuclear markets.