On Wednesday, June 4, 2025, Semih successfully defended his PhD thesis titled "From sensation to action: Visual processing and extinction learning in the pigeon forebrain". Semih investigated the early stages of visual processing in the tectofugal component of the avian sensory "cortex". In addition, he conducted studies on the differences of cellular coding during extinction learning in NCL and hippocampus, thereby revealing fundamental differences of information integration by multiplexing neurons. The committee, consisting of Onur Güntürkün, Jonas Rose, and Caspar Schwierdzik, challenged his ideas with tons of questions, but Semih held the ground and demonstrated what a great scientist he is. The committee was deeply impressed and valued his thesis with a magna cum laude.

Congratulations, Semih! Ooh, ooh! Let Justin sing "Your lab is proud of you!"