Dr. Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil is searching for the most peculiar objects in the universe. Her research led to a discovery of an extremely rare galaxy with a unique circular structure, now commonly referred to as Burçin's Galaxy. Her work provided the first description of a double-ringed elliptical galaxy, challenging current theories and assumptions about how the universe works and how galaxies start and evolve.

Mutlu-Pakdil earned her PhD at the University of Minnesota and her undergraduate degree is from Bilkent University in Turkey. She spends most of her time searching for hierarchical structure at the scale of dwarf galaxies as a novel test of the Cold Dark Matter paradigm. She uses data gathered in a large range of wavelengths from premier telescopes worldwide to learn more about how the universe came to be the way it is today.