He received a Bachelor of Surgery in physics from the Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, in 2001, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a postdoctoral position at University of California, San Francisco.
He has contributed significantly to the understanding of how motor proteins walk along their filaments. The Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award was created in 1997, and is awarded annually. The
Yildiz currently teaches physics at University of California, Berkeley.
In 2003 Yildiz received the Foresight Distinguished Student Award for his study of the motion of the molecular motor myosin V. According to the Foresight Institute: "The Distinguished Student Award recognizes the college graduate or undergraduate student whose work is deemed most notable in advancing the development and understanding of molecular nanotechnology." The award was presented during the Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, October 10–12, 2003, in San Francisco. Yildiz was awarded the 2005 General Electric & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists.
