Burcin Becerik-Gerber

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Dean's Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Education

  • 2006, Doctoral Degree, Doctor of Design, Harvard University
  • 2002, Master's Degree, Civil and Environmental Engineering , University of California - Berkeley
  • 2001, Master's Degree, Architecture, Istanbul Technical University
  • 1999, Bachelor's Degree, Architecture, Istanbul Technical University

Biography


Dr. Becerik-Gerber is a Professor and Director of Graduate Programs at the Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of University of Southern California. She is the founding director of the Innovation in Integrated Informatics LAB: http://i-lab.usc.edu/ and the Center for Intelligent Environments (CENTIENTS): https://www.intelligentenvironments.usc.edu. Her research falls at the intersection of built environment, machine intelligence and systems thinking. Specifically, her work focuses on the acquisition, modeling, and analysis of the data needed for user-centered built environments, and the development of novel frameworks and visualization techniques to improve built-environment efficiency, while increasing user satisfaction. Dr. Becerik-Gerber graduated from Istanbul Technical University with a Bachelor of Architecture (1999) and an M.S. in Architecture (2001).  She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she received an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (2002). She earned her Doctor of Design (2006) degree from Harvard University in the field of Project Management and Information Systems. After graduating from Harvard University, she worked as a consultant and taught in the area of information automation and management for three years. To date, she has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and her work has received support worth more than $8 million from a variety of sources. In 2012, Burcin been appointed as the inaugural holder of the Stephen Schrank Early Career Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is the recipient of MIT Technology Review’s TR35 Recognition (2012), NSF CAREER Award (2014), Viterbi Junior Research Award (2016), Mellon Mentoring Award (2017), Celebration of Engineering & Technology Innovation Award (CETI) in the Outstanding Early Career Researcher category from FIATECH (2018) and the Rutherford Visiting Fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute (2018). She serves as an Associate Editor for ASCE’s Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering since 2011.

Research Summary


User-Centered Built Environments
Human-built environment interactions; Occupancy and behavior driven control of building systems; Modeling user preferences; Energy-aware and comfort-driven smart built environments; User-centered design and operation of built environments; People-centered AI for built environments

Responsive and Adaptive Built Environments
Cognitive built environments; Adjustable/progressive autonomy; Intelligent automation of building systems; Human-built environment collaboration & communication; Disaster-prepared built environments; Robot-worker collaboration

Situational Awareness for Built Environments
Data-driven engineering; User-centered sensing and learning; Indoor location sensing; Integrated building/infrastructure reality capture systems; Modeling occupancy and associated energy loads; Online learning for predicting human & building behavior

Building/Infrastructure Information Modeling & Visualization
Digital twins of buildings and cities; Geometric and semantic built environment information visualization; Building information modeling/visualization; Immersive and interactive environments; Cross-disciplinary, collaborative, geographically distributed engineering

Awards


  • 2021 Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) Fellowship
  • 2020 Orange County Engineering Council Outstanding Engineering Merit Award
  • 2018 FIATECH Outstanding Early Career Researcher, Celebration of Engineering & Technology Innovation Award (CETI)
  • 2018 Alan Turing Institute Rutherford Visiting Fellowship
  • 2017 Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Mellon Mentoring Award
  • 2016 Viterbi School of Engineering, Junior Research Award
  • 2015 ASCE Outstanding Reviewer Recognition
  • 2014 National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award
  • 2013 NAE, Selected to Participate in NAE's 2013 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium
  • 2012 USC, Stephen Shrank Early Career Chair
  • 2012 MIT Technology Review, TR 35 Award
  • 2010 NAE, Selected as an Innovator to the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE)
  • 2004 Project Management Institute, Donald S. Barrie Award
  • 2004 Project Management Institute, Wilson-Zells Academic Scholarship
Appointments
  • Department Chair, Chair, Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Office
  • KAP 210A
  • Kaprielian Hall
  • 3620 South Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90089
  • USC Mail Code: 2531

Contact Information
  • (213) 740-4383
  • becerik@usc.edu

Links


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