About Me
I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University since Fall 2024!
My research centers on understanding and enhancing the resilience of cyber-physical-social systems. These complex systems incorporate computerized, physical, and societal components. Given the societal reliance on their continuous operation, safeguarding them against risks is paramount. However, resilience is multi-dimensional. For every real-world system, (i) resilience against what?, (ii) resilience for whom?, and (iii) resilience at what cost? must be discerned. My research vision is to cultivate multi-dimensional resilience across agri-food, transportation, and infrastructural systems.
I earned my M.S. degree from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, where I was advised by Dr. Kash Barker. My thesis delves into enhancing the resilience of interdependent infrastructure networks with an emphasis on social vulnerability and equity.
I earned my Ph.D. degree from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with the specialization area of Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure Systems, where I was advised by Dr. Megan Konar. My dissertation focuses on the resilience of agri-food flow networks and their supporting transportation architecture across spatial scales.
Honors
- Our paper is featured as the cover of Nature Food July 2023 Issue!
- I have been invited to the 2023 CEE Rising Stars at MIT!
- I have been awarded the 2023-2024 Dissertation Completion Fellowship by UIUC Graduate College!
- I have been awarded the ACDIS Summer 2023 Fellowship by UIUC College of Liberal Arts & Sciences!
- I have been awarded the 2019 Best Thesis Award by OU School of Industrial and Systems Engineering!
Selected Publications
- Trade-offs between resilience, sustainability and cost in the US agri-food transportation infrastructure
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Megan Konar
Nature Food 2025 [Paper] - Optimization of national grain imports to balance risk and return: A portfolio theory approach
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Megan Konar
Environmental Research: Food Systems 2024 [Paper] - Structural chokepoints determine the resilience of agri-food supply chains in the United States
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Megan Konar, Michael J. Puma, Lav R. Varshney
Nature Food 2023 [Paper] - Analyzing the tradeoff between vulnerability and recoverability investments for interdependent infrastructure networks
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Kash Barker, Andrés González
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 2023 [Paper] - Food flows between counties in the United States from 2007 to 2017
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Junren Wang, Megan Konar
Environmental Research Letters 2022 [Paper] - A complex network framework for the efficiency and resilience trade-off in global food trade
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Megan Konar
Environmental Research Letters 2021 [Paper] - Social-vulnerability and equity perspectives on interdependent infrastructure network component importance
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Kash Barker, Christopher Zobel, Yasser Almoghathawi
Sustainable Cities and Society 2020 [Paper] - Community-resilience driven restoration model for interdependent infrastructure networks
Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Yasser Almoghathawi, Kash Barker, Andrés González, Shima Mohebbi
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2019 [Paper] - Instructor, IEE 210 Introduction to Industrial Engineering
- Guest Lecturer, CEE 598 Globalization of Water