Bio

For more information and a full list of publications and professional activities please refer to my full CV.

Employment

07/2022- Department head of Civil and Environment Engineering, Carnegie Mellon Univ.

07/2009- Prof. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

• Co-chairing strategic planning for the department since 2019.

• Co-chaired strategic planning and activities for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the department 2020-2022.

• Organized 2020 and 2022 CEE Rising Stars workshop, targeting senior PhD students who are interested in promoting women in pursuing teaching and research careers in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

• Worked on establishing an undergraduate mentorship program.

• Lead graduate program curriculum development.

• National Academies of Science Board Member, Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment (02/202-)

• Leading a Taskforce on Computing in Civil Engineering for All, within ASCE.

01/2016- Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder, LeanFM Technologies

• Co-Founded LeanFM Technologies with a former PhD student

• Helped in raising $1.05M from NSF SBIR grants and $1.205M seed funding

• Software is currently deployed in 20 buildings, 3.8M sqft of facilities.

09/2015-08-2021 Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering

• Provided support towards growing College of Engineering's research expenditures by more than 31% and the research awards by more than 50% over the last five years, with record high total amounts achieved in the College's known history in 2021.

• Developed and successfully executed strategies around improving research interactions with targeted federal agencies.

• Instituted the moonshot program to identify and foster next big research centers for the College of Engineering.

• Lead the development of strategic research visioning for the College of Engineering.

• Lead development of a plan towards sustainable operations and management of core research infrastructure.

• Co-created Engineering Research Accelerator to provide an integrated, coordinated, college-wide set of services for research pursuit, incubation, acceleration, and support; and to identify and foster high-potential, cross-cutting, emerging research directions.

• Managed a yearly budget to strategically invest in research support activities.

01/2016-09/2021 Director of Engineering Research Accelerator, College of Engineering

• Co-developed a three-tier service structure around research support, pursuits and incubation.

• Instituted multi-faceted research support for large-scale pursuits.

• Hired 9 staff members.

• Implemented and managed a matrix organizational structure, and fostered a one-team culture amongst different functional groups composed of 26 staff.

• Implemented ways to recover 25-30% of staff cost annually.

• Oversaw 8 faculty members, whose academic department is the Accelerator.

• Lead development of research dashboards and databases for shared facilities.

07/2013-17 Co-director of Smart Infrastructure Institute (formerly known as Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Incubator)

• Co-directed a multi-disciplinary research institute

• Established and implemented different industry partnerships as part of center activities.

07/2006-9 Assoc. Prof. Civil and Environ. Eng., Carnegie Mellon University

2000-2006 Assist Prof. Civil and Environ. Eng., Carnegie Mellon University

1994-2000 Research Assistant, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford Univ., CA.

1999 Teaching Assistant, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford Univ., CA.

Sum. 1997 Project Engineer, Kutlutas Construction Inc, Ankara, Turkey.

1992-1993 Teaching Assistant, Bilkent University, Grad. Sch. of Business, Ankara, Turkey

Sum. 1988-89 Assistant Project Engineer, Kutlutas Construction Inc, Mersin, Turkey,