
Overview
Dr. Erdoğan is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Studies (the iSchool) since January 2022, and in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (by courtesy) at Syracuse University (SU). She is a member of the Energy and Environment Cluster at SU. Prior to joining the iSchool, she was an Associate Research Professor and the Director of the Transportation Policy Research Group (TPRG) at the National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) at the University of Maryland College Park (UMD), of which she is currently an affiliate. Dr. Erdoğan received her Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Maryland specializing in transportation. She received her M.S. degrees in Operations Research from the University of Delaware and in Civil Engineering with transportation focus from Istanbul Technical University, and B.S. degree in Geodesy and Photogrammetry (now Geomatics) Engineering from Istanbul Technical University.
She is continuously looking for PhD, MS and BS students interested in topics such as applied data science in the transportation/mobility domain, data for social good, urban informatics, smart cities, transportation modeling and simulation. Having skills including: strong analytical and communication, programming in Java, C++, Python, R, geo-spatial analysis tools such as QGIS, ArcGIS and background in transportation engineering and planning are a plus. Please reach out by email including your CV.
Research
With an educational foundation in transportation engineering, an inherently interdisciplinary field in applied sciences, Dr. Erdoğan works at the intersection of many disciplines including data science, public policy, urban science, decision science, and social science. Her methods draw from many of them including transportation network modeling and simulation, behavioral modeling, scenario analysis, operations research techniques such as mathematical modeling and heuristics, and data analytics. Dr. Erdoğan’s research contributions, embedded in a transdisciplinary philosophy, encompasses three critical topic areas in transportation field: (1) Multi-modal Transportation Systems Analysis with an emphasis on environmental, societal and policy impacts; (2) Sustainable Transportation and Logistics with an emphasis on alternative fuel vehicles and fleet operations and emerging transportation technologies; and (3) Dynamics of Civil and Natural Systems Interaction with an emphasis on modelling transportation systems in relation to land use, environment and other interconnected systems. Her research is rooted in a deep interest in uncovering unexplored research problems and an openness to use transdisciplinary approaches to analyze complex societal challenges such as the climate crisis, sustainability, globalization, technology and society, and inequality, most effectively. Her research interests include sustainable, resilient and equitable transportation systems and services, smart cities, urban informatics, transportation and data science, future of mobility and cities, equitable and sustainable urban and community development.
Dr. Erdogan’s research has been funded by various agencies, including, National Science Foundation, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Maryland State Highway Administration, Greater Washington Partnership, Maryland Departments of Transportation, Health, Environment, and others.
She is currently co-PI on two multi-institution, interdisciplinary NSF projects:
Award Abstract # 1951924 SCC-IRG Track 1: Inclusive Public Transit Toolkit to Assess Quality of Service Across Socioeconomic Status in Baltimore City (2020-2024). This project aims to create novel methods and provide guidelines for the design, development, deployment and evaluation of a toolkit to identify and mitigate equity issues in Baltimore City’s public transit system (https://balto.umd.edu/). This project will advance the state of the art in privacy, survey design, data analytics, transit equity, data-driven collaboration, and transit simulation and modeling.
Award Abstract # 2009248 CNH2-L: Modeling the dynamics of human and estuarine systems with regulatory feedbacks (2020-2024). This project studies the complex interrelationships among socio-economic activity, transportation, land use, land cover, and water quality with feedbacks between the human social-economic system and the environmental system. This project will develop a loosely coupled modeling suite for the Chesapeake Bay (including an integrated transportation and urban development model my team is working to build) for analyzing future scenarios to understand how different trajectories of social, economic and policy changes impact water quality. This will enable officials make informed decisions related to planning for growth, climate change impacts, and restoring the Bay.
Teaching
IST 421 Information Visualization
IST 687 Introduction to Data Science
IST 810 Research Practicum
Professional
Dr. Erdoğan is a member of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, Transportation Research Board’s standing committees on Network Modeling; and Transportation Demand Forecasting; and many other sub-committees/taskforces. She served on the editorial advisory board of the Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (2015-2020) and currently serves on Urban Planning, and Energies electric vehicles section topic board.
Please see her research profiles for research and publication details: