- Post Doctoral Fellow, Engineering Research Associate, Stanford University(1978-1980)
- Research Scientist, Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA USA (1979-1980): I worked on the photoacoustic effect, which resulted in the paper: A.Atalar, “Photoacoustic effect as a liquid absorbance detector,” Appl. Opt. 19, pp. 3204-3210 (1980).
- Assistant Professor, Middle East Technical University, (1980-1982, 1983-1986): In 1980, I taught the first microprocessors course in Turkey.
- Ernst Leitz Wetzlar (now Leica) GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany (1982-1983): I led the team that developed the first commercial scanning acoustic microscope. This work is reported in the paper: A.Atalar and M.Hoppe, “A High Performance Acoustic Microscope,” Rev. Sci. Inst. 57, pp. 2568-2576 (1986).
- Visiting Professor, Stanford University (1995-1996). I worked on atomic force microscopy and capacitive micromachined transducers.
