Erdal Arıkan  (S’84–M’79–SM’94) was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1958. He received the B.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1981 and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
Arıkan served as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining Bilkent University as a faculty member in 1987. Since 1987 he has been with the Electrical-Electronics Engineering Department of Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, where he is presently a Professor.
He received the and the for his work on polar coding. He is an Â鶹´«Ã½AV Fellow and was an Â鶹´«Ã½AV Distinguished Lecturer for 2014-2015.