Gezgin, ElifCanbolat, Argun Abrek2025-01-272025-01-2720221468-38571743-9639https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2022.2067097https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12428/25637This article examines the emergence of Nobel Prize-winning Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar as a scientific persona model. After receiving the Nobel Prize in 2015, Sancar's nationalistic tendencies and close relationship with incumbent Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AKP) leaders opened up a wide range of discussions on how a scientist's relationship with politics should be intellectually interpreted. Focusing on the case of Aziz Sancar, this article examines the specific contextual conditions in which a scientist expresses his identity and how it is interpreted by the public. To this end, the aim of this work is to present an in-depth analysis of the discussions that took place in Eksi Sozluk, a popular social media platform acting as an online forum in Turkey, and news from the national media and to scrutinize how a scientific persona is conceived in Turkey and how Aziz Sancar has been 'de-scienticized' in the heavy polarized Turkish political atmosphere.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessScientific personaAziz Sancarperformancesciencede-scienticizationnationalismTurkeyArticle22340341810.1080/14683857.2022.2067097Q1WOS:0007846336000012-s2.0-85129406613Q1