Sefaattin Tongay is currently a tenure-track professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy at Arizona State University. Prior to his appointment at ASU, he has completed his postdoctoral studies at University of California, Berkeley at the Materials Science and Engineering Department with Professor Junqiao Wu. He received his doctorate at the University of Florida in 2010 working with Distinguish Professor Arthur F. Hebard, master's degree at Bilkent University in 2005 with Professor S. Ciraci, and bachelor’s degree at Ege University in 2002. 

He has published more than 100 SCI-indexed research articles in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Physics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, Nano Letters and Physical Review Letters. He currently has h-index of 43, and holds three key patents on 2D materials. His work received wide media coverage from Nature publications, Scientific American, MIT news, Science Daily, Phys.org, IOP nanotechweb, Gizmag and various other media sources. He is the winner of prestigious 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career Award, Tom Scott Memorial Award, 2016, 2017 and 2018 Top Teaching Award at Arizona State University, Outstanding Assistant Professor Award (2017), and 2016 Top Scientist of the Year award by Turkish Science Heroes Agency, 2017 Jewish National Funds Faculty Fellowship, Summa Cum Laude degree from undergraduate education, and various other awards including travel grant awards, graduate scholarship awards, and presidential scholarship awards.

Tongay is an editorial member of IOP Applied Physics Review (impact factor 14) and more recently Nature Publishing Journal Nature 2D Materials and Applications. He has been awarded various research grants by NSF Division of Materials Research (DMR), Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) programs, Army Research Office, as well as two (2) different private companies. He has contributed to multiple grant proposals for Office of Naval Research (ONR), NSF, Department of Energy (DOE), and DARPA between 2007 and 2014.