Source: https://eschatialabs.com/researchers/

# Researchers

Mert Kaya and Betül Keleş Kaya founded Eschatia Labs. Independent researchers collaborate with them on the lab’s projects.

## Founders

Founder

### [Mert Kaya](https://mertkayacs.com/)

#### Open-source work and science

- [UBMK 2026 paper, accepted; preprint on this site.](https://eschatialabs.com/research/ubmk-2026/)
- [Eldalambë preprint, available on this site.](https://eschatialabs.com/research/eldalambe-2026/)
- [xdfdet, models and code for explainable deepfake detection.](https://xdfdet.mertkayacs.com/)
- [Tholos and Tholos-2B, local task assistants.](https://tholos.mertkayacs.com/)
- [JevAlt and JevOss, small decision models and open tests.](https://jevalt.mertkayacs.com/)
- [reevesagents, tools for software agents, which are assistants that carry out development tasks.](https://reevesagents.mertkayacs.com/)

#### Research areas

- Model testing and probability estimates
- Small language models
- Explainable image models
- Tools for AI assistants
- Language preservation

[mertkayacs.com](https://mertkayacs.com/) [GitHub](https://github.com/mertkayacs) [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/mertkayacs) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mertkayacs) [X](https://x.com/mertkayaai)

Co-founder and Head of Design

### Betül Keleş Kaya

- Master’s student in architecture at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (DIA)
- Graduated top of the architecture class at Çankaya University

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bet%C3%BClkele%C5%9F/)

## Independent researchers

### Mohammad Ahmed

- PhD candidate at Çankaya University
- Master’s degree in computer science

### [Berk Demirci](https://demirciberk.com/)

- Part-time AI engineer at Enocta
- Computer engineering student at TED University

#### Research areas

- Retrieval systems for AI assistants
- Training small models from larger ones
- AI agents

[demirciberk.com](https://demirciberk.com/) [GitHub](https://github.com/demirciberk) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/berkdemirci1/) [berk@eschatialabs.com](mailto:berk@eschatialabs.com)

### Orkun Koçak

- Information security specialist
- Master’s degree in computer science from TED University

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/orkun-kocak/)

### Damlanur Yağdı

- AI engineer at Enocta

#### Research areas

- Conversational AI
- Generative AI

## Open-source contributions

Mert Kaya’s pull requests to external repositories, ordered by each repository’s star count.

1. ![musistudio avatar](https://github.com/musistudio.png?size=64) musistudio/claude-code-router 37,653 [View pull request](https://github.com/musistudio/claude-code-router/pull/1871)
2. ![sgl-project avatar](https://github.com/sgl-project.png?size=64) sgl-project/sglang 37,092 [View pull request](https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang/pull/43377)
3. ![jarrodwatts avatar](https://github.com/jarrodwatts.png?size=64) jarrodwatts/claude-hud 28,494 [View pull request](https://github.com/jarrodwatts/claude-hud/pull/802)
4. ![EleutherAI avatar](https://github.com/EleutherAI.png?size=64) EleutherAI/lm-evaluation-harness 14,208 [View pull request](https://github.com/EleutherAI/lm-evaluation-harness/pull/4346)
5. ![sirmalloc avatar](https://github.com/sirmalloc.png?size=64) sirmalloc/ccstatusline 13,274 [View pull request](https://github.com/sirmalloc/ccstatusline/pull/695)