Dr. Muhammed A. Yıldırım is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Koç University in Istanbul, as well as the Research Director for the Growth Lab at Harvard's Center for International Development (CID). He obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University and BS degree from California Institute of Technology. After his graduate studies, he was a postdoctoral fellow at CID between 2011 and 2014.

His research is focused on understanding network and spillover effects in a multitude of research areas including industrial policy, international trade, productivity, economic growth, and matching. His research has appeared in high-impact economic journals and prestigious working-paper series. He is also a co-author of The Atlas of Economic Complexity, published by the MIT Press, and contributes to the back end of the associated website.

Dr. Yıldırım’s Ph.D. research revolved around using tools and concepts from complexity, network science, and evolution to understand complex biological and the pharmaceutical industry. His research in these areas has been published in high-impact journals including Science, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, and Cell and has been cited extensively.

A native of Turkey, he lives between Istanbul and Boston with his wife and two kids.