Prof Urgen is graduated from Istanbul Technical University Metallurgical Engineering Department in 1977. After completing his master's and doctoral studies at the same university, he became an assistant professor in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering at İTÜ in 1991. He became a professor in 1996. He currently works as a faculty member in the same department and leads the Surface Treatments Research Group.

After receiving his bachelor's degree, he spent a year in Postdoctoral Studies at the Max-Planck Institute, Metal Research Department. He was the head of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering at İTÜ between 2002 and 2005 and the coordinator of the interdisciplinary Materials Science and engineering program supported by DPT in the scope of Advanced Technologies in engineering project between 2002 and 2011. He continues his research in the field of surface treatment science and technologies (corrosion and corrosion protection, electrolytic metal coating, vacuum coating techniques, anodic oxidation, hard coatings and tribology of hard coatings).

He has been working for many years at both academic and industrial service level on corrosion and corrosion protection. He is a member of the Turkish corrosion Society, UCTEA Chamber of Metallurgical and Materials Engineers, AVS, ACS. He represents Turkey at the European Academy of surface treatments (EAST) and the International corrosion Council (ICF). There are over 150 publications published in international and national journals. He has given over 15 speeches as an invited speaker at national and international meetings, organized numerous National and International Congress Symposiums and participated in the organizing boards. He also undertook the duties of conducting and researching in various public and private sector funded projects. He has a total of 7 international patents, three of which are published, four of which are made application.