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Viterbi Faculty Directory

Burcin Becerik-Gerber

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Dean's Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and 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. Burçin Becerik-Gerber is a professor and Chair of Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and founder and the Director of USC Center for Intelligent Environments (CENTIENTS). During the last 15 years, her research focused on advanced data acquisition, modeling, visualization for design, construction, and control of user-centered responsive and adaptive built environments. She pioneered a new field: Human-Building Interaction (HBI), which is a convergent field that represents the growing complexities of the dynamic interplay between human experience and intelligence within built environments. She published her work in more than 200 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. Her work has received support worth over $14 million from a variety of sources, including the NSF, DoE, DHS and DoT and corporate sponsors. In 2012, she was named by the MIT’s Technology Review as one of the top 35 technology innovators under the age of 35 (first civil engineering faculty to receive this recognition). She received the FIATECH Celebration of Engineering and Technology Innovation Award in 2018. The same year, she was awarded the Rutherford Visiting Fellowship by the Alan Turing Institute, UK’s national data science and AI institute. Between 2012-2019, she held the inaugural Stephen Schrank Early Career Chair. In 2020, she was appointed as a USC Viterbi Dean's Professor. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Construction. Since 2021, she serves on the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She received mentoring and leadership recognitions such as the Mellon Mentoring Award (2017) and an Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) Fellowship (2021), which speak to her commitment to education and leadership in academia. In 2022, she received an Emmy Award as a co-producer of the documentary, “Lives, Not Grades,” which told the story of a novel course, she co-designed and co-taught, that focused on engineering innovation for global challenges. In 2023, she received ASCE’s Computing in Civil Engineering Award and in 2024, she received ASCE’s Peurifoy Construction Research Award. She serves as an Associate Editor for ASCE’s Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering since 2011 and for ASCE’s OPEN: Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering since 2023.

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


  • 2024 ASCE, Peurifoy Construction Research Award
  • 2024 ASCE Fellow
  • 2024 ASCE, Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research
  • 2023 ASCE, Computing in Civil Engineering Award
  • 2023 Los Angeles Business Journal, Leaders of Influence: Thriving in their 40s Profile
  • 2022 Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Los Angeles Area Emmy
  • 2021 Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) Fellowship
  • 2021 NAC, Elected to National Academy of Construction
  • 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 USC Viterbi Junior Faculty Research Award
  • 2014 NSF Early CAREER Award
  • 2013 National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontiers in Engineering (FOE) invitation
  • 2012 Stephen Shrank Early Career Chair
  • 2012 MIT Technology Review Top 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35)
  • 2010 National Academy of Engineers (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) invitation
  • 2004 Project Management Institute, Donald S. Barrie Award
  • 2004 Project Management Institute, Wilson-Zells Academic Scholarship
Appointments
  • Department 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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