Aşkar, Attila (b. September 1943, Bolvadin, Afyonkarahisar), scientist. He was president of Koç University (KU) between 2001 and 2009.
After finishing Saint Joseph High School in 1961, Aşkar studied civil engineering at Istanbul Technical University, graduating with a master’s degree in 1966. He completed his PhD at Princeton University in the USA and after graduating in 1969 began working as a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University. In 1971 he returned to Turkey, working for a while at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu; TÜBİTAK), where he taught a PhD class. He was appointed as a lecturer at the Mathematics Department of Boğaziçi University in 1972, later serving as vice dean of the Faculty of Basic Sciences, Senate member, and Intercollegiate Board representative. He was also guest professor at Princeton and Paris VI universities, the Göttingen Max-Planck Institute in Göttingen, and the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Aşkar is currently professor in the KU Mathematics Department. As well as lecturing, he was also founding dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1993–98) and vice dean responsible for academic affairs (1998–2001).
A member of both the Turkish Academy of Sciences (Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi; TÜBA) and TÜBİTAK, he has received the TÜBİTAK Incentive Award, TÜBİTAK Science Award and Ministry of Culture Information Age Award. Almost 100 of his articles have appeared in international journals and he has written two books on mathematics: Methods in Applied Algebra and Analysis (1981) and Lattice Dynamical Foundations of Continuum Theories of Solids (1986). He also developed the “Aşkar Theory” in mathematics, which was named in his honor.