Civil engineering postdoctoral researcher Onur Alisan, Ph.D. was chosen as a 4TU Fellowship to study resilience in vaccine distribution during a disaster. (Photo: M Wallheiser/FAMU-FSU Engineering)
Onur Alisan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate at the Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response Center (RIDER) has received an esteemed fellowship award from the 4TU Center for Resilience Engineering.
The FAMU-FSU Engineering researcher from the department of civil and environmental engineering will be working in the Designing Systems for Informed Resilience Engineering program (DeSire) to advance our understanding of disaster resiliency.
“I am very excited about getting this fellowship,” Alisan said. “I plan to work with researchers from all over the world in a vibrant environment, to both observe and contribute resilience knowledge, planning, and response with the international community.”
The group engages the talents of Resilience Fellows worldwide in a network of top-level academic scholars, engineers, practitioners and decision-makers. They aim to work with at least 100 Resilience Fellows to serve as ambassadors on Resilience Engineering and build a bridge between science and practice.
The program is hosted by the University of Twente in the Netherlands and includes the Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and Wageningen University and Research.
Eren Ozguven is an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and is Alisan’s advisor. Ozguven is also the director of the RIDER Center and hopes to develop a collaboration between 4TU and RIDER.
“I am very proud of Dr. Alisan in achieving such an important fellowship award from 4TU RE,” Ozguven said. “With disasters happening all-around the world, it is critical to study the disaster resilience at an international context and learn from each other. I cannot wait to see how Dr. Alisan’s research can help our communities become more disaster-resilient and self-sustaining, especially those that are rural and vulnerable against disasters such as pandemics and hurricanes.”
The research Alisan proposed for the 4TU center fellowship required extensive transportation accessibility analysis and optimization processes related to vaccine distribution. He plans to research optimal solutions related to vaccine distribution during a pandemic, especially in rural areas like the Florida Panhandle, where accessibility is a critical problem.
“The pandemic we are living in is one of the greatest disasters in human history and vaccination is the safest way to end the pandemic,” Alisan said. “Therefore, vaccine distribution is an important part of this process not only for this disaster but for the possibility of upcoming ones.”
Alisan will be working on several other disaster resilience topics, like the evacuation and sheltering for hurricanes. He plans to focus on the demographics and socioeconomics of communities to find tools that can help those communities become more resilient.
“I welcome the opportunity to work with Dr. Alisan on such an important topic,” Mehmet Baran Ulak, assistant professor at the University of Twente, said. “Through the collaboration between 4TU RE and RIDER, we have an excellent opportunity to conduct cutting-edge multi-disciplinary research to improve the resilience of our vulnerable communities.
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