New Faculty: Furkan Çakmak joins structural engineering group as a faculty member

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Furkan Çakmak has joined the structural engineering group as a faculty member. Dr. Çakmak brings valuable expertise and a strong background in structural engineering, which will enhance our team's research and academic endeavors. We warmly welcome him to our department and look forward to his contributions.

Biography

Furkan Çakmak graduated as the second-ranked student from the Middle East Technical University (METU) Civil Engineering Department in 2019 and pursued graduate studies at Wayne State University, earning his M.Sc. in 2021 and Ph.D. in 2024. During his master’s studies, he investigated the time-dependent behavior of prestressed concrete and composite steel bridge girders. For his Ph.D., he studied the behavior of reinforced and unreinforced ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) plates using analytical and experimental methods.

Throughout his education, he participated in several national projects in the U.S. A project he involved in as a sole graduate student during his master’s studies was nominated for AASHTO's "High-Value Research Award" by the Michigan Department of Transportation. Another project, "Bridge Barrier-Deck Connection Rehabilitation," where he was the sole graduate student researcher, won AASHTO’s Region 3 Research Award. In 2023, he presented this project at a university-wide research symposium, earning third place.
Additionally, Çakmak contributed as the sole student researcher representing Wayne State University in a multi-university collaboration on "AASHTO Guideline for Load Rating of Concrete Segmental Bridges." He also contributed to the "Rare Earth from U.S. Extractions" project funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

His primary research interests include the analysis of prestressed and post-tensioned composite bridge systems, the applicability of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete in infrastructure projects, and computational modelling to perform limit state analysis.
Dr. Çakmak joined the Civil Engineering Department at Boğaziçi University in 2024, where he continues his research and academic activities.