Firat Yasar received the B.S. degree in Physics from Anadolu University, Turkey, in 2010, M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2014 and 2020, respectively. He worked as a senior technology and development engineer at a U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing company, Global Foundries.

He joined Prof. Bulent Aslan's research group at Anadolu University as an undergraduate student in 2009 and performed photoluminescence spectroscopy on self-assembled AlGaAs/GaAs quantum dots. He worked on the design, fabrication, metrology, and characterization of flexible semiconductor devices in Prof. Zhenqiang Ma's research group at UW-Madison from 2012 to 2015. He mainly focused on Ge and GeSn based photonic devices. In 2015, he joined his second research group, Prof. Zongfu Yu. He maintained bandgap engineering research on scintillator materials (ZnO, GaN, BaF2, etc.) for spatially resolved X-ray detection with a specific photonic crystal design. Upon his graduation in early 2020, he started to work in a semiconductor manufacturing company, Global Foundries, as senior technology and development engineer. He worked in the Si-photonics team and worked on hybrid integration of III-V semiconductor lasers and fibers on CMOS chips and creating and developing advanced packaging processes. 

Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research explores the study of quantum sensors, gravity gradiometers, and astro-photonics. Dr. Yasar is working on designing and prototyping flight-approved optical systems for quantum sensor applications. His goal is to innovate the current gravity gradiometer technology to collect information on geologic structures underground and undersea. He is also working on improving the coupling efficiency of the optical components of the ultra-high-resolution spectroscopy module for astronomy applications.