[3] Atatüre was born in Kayseri in 1975 and completed his secondary education at the Gazi Anatolian High School in Ankara in 1992 before obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in 1996 from the Bilkent University, one of the top institutions in the country.

He then moved to become a postdoctoral researcher in the Quantum Photonics Group of Ataç İmamoğlu at ETH Zurich in Switzerland where he received his Venia legendi for conducting long-lasting work on the full control of semiconductor quantum dots, including their positioning for cavity QED, the first demonstration of all-optical spin initialization and the first observation of the Faraday effect for a single spin.

Atatüre is a member of the Institute of Physics in England, the Science Academy of Turkey, Academia Europaea in Europe,[4] and Optica in the USA (formerly Optical Society of America).

[7] His noted public engagements include 6 TEDx talks on quantum physics, light, science and diversity, as well as multiple opinion pieces in published media.

He was nominated Turkish man of the year for 2015 by the fashion magazine GQ, who nicknamed him "“Profesör kahkaha" or "Professor Laughter" due to his friendly attitude and enthusiasm for his research".