Eren grew up in the Barhal Valley in Turkey and studied cryptography as an undergraduate at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart Universitesi[1] where he earned a B.S.

[3] Eren's Ph.D. research involved developing oligotyping,[4] a computational method to examine the diversity of microorganisms within high throughput sequencing datasets.

Following his Ph.D., Eren joined the Marine Biological Laboratory as a postdoctoral scientist, during which he applied oligotyping to microbes that live in the human genitourinary tract,[5] oral cavity,[6][7] and sewage.

[13] In 2022, Eren was appointed Professor of Ecosystem Data Science at the University of Oldenburg and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

[14] Eren is an advocate of open-source software[9] and leads the community development of anvi'o,[15] a platform to allow analysis and visualization of large datasets.