Dr. Ates is an academic and practitioner with a strong focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, energy economics, and socio-technical transformation. He currently serves as a professor at Ankara University of Social Sciences and as the head of the
Department of Economics. Beyond his teaching and research responsibilities, he has been actively involved in projects with leading international organizations, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the European Union (EU), where he has contributed as a consultant or country specialist.
He earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Vienna University of Economics and completed his doctoral studies in Social and Economic Sciences at the Vienna University of Technology. In 2016–2017, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Additionally, as a recipient of the Taiwan Fellowship in 2020, he conducted research as a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University.