Özlem Ergun

Dr. Özlem Ergun is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to beginning at Northeastern, Dr. Ergun was the Coca-Cola Associate Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech where she co-founded the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems (CHHS). Dr. Ergun’s research focuses on the design and management of large-scale networks. She has applied her work on network design, management and collaboration to problems arising in the airline, ocean cargo and trucking industries. Recently, her work has been focused on the use of systems thinking and mathematical modeling in applications with societal impact, such as applying new algorithmic and analytical tools to important real world problems. She has worked with organizations that respond to humanitarian crisis around the world, including: UN WFP, IFRC, CARE USA, FEMA, USACE, CDC, AFCEMA, and MedShare International. Dr. Ergun received a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001, and she was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2003.