Steel Structures
Earthquake Engineering
Research Interests:
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Seismic design, evaluation and rehabilitation of steel structures
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Cyclic stability, modeling, and design of steel columns
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Experimental methods in earthquake engineering
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Structural performance under extreme loading
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High-performance steel materials
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Seismic Risk and Loss Assessment
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Performance-based design
Gülen Özkula, PhD, MBA
Bio
Hello there, I'm thrilled to introduce myself! My name is Gulen Ozkula, and I'm an educator, civil engineer, educational consultant, mentor, and adventurer. From traveling around the world to pursuing my academic passions, I've had a thrilling journey so far.
I joined as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the esteemed University of the District of Columbia in 2024 from University of Wisconsin, Platteville. I'm proud to have earned an honors degree in Civil Engineering from Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey, and an associate degree in Business Administration from Eskisehir Anadolu University. To take my language skills to the next level, I headed to the United States to attend the rigorous University of Pennsylvania's Intensive Business English program (UPENN).
In 2011, I graduated with a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fast forward to 2017, and I completed my Ph.D. in Structural Engineering, specializing in steel structures from the prestigious University of California, San Diego (UCSD). During my time at UCSD, I worked with the esteemed Prof. Dr. Chia-Ming Uang, and my research focused on the behavior of steel deep beam-columns under seismic pressure.
After the completion of my Ph.D., I continued my research as a postdoctoral researcher at UCSD, but I was eager to share my knowledge with others. That's when I joined the faculty of Tekirdag Namik Kemal University in Turkey as an Assistant Professor. I'm a firm believer that learning is a lifelong pursuit, which is why I continued to broaden my horizons by working as a Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan in 2019.
In addition to my academic pursuits, I'm also the founder and owner of IdealEdu Consulting, which provides comprehensive assistance to students seeking admission to colleges and universities in the United States. Most recently, I completed my MBA studies at Istanbul University in January 2023, which has further enriched my knowledge and experience in business management.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know me. I'm excited about what the future holds, and I'm always eager to learn and grow. Welcome to my website and, I hope that you will find the content informative, engaging, and useful!
Latest Publication
Classification and Identification of Buckling Modes of
Steel Columns under Cyclic Loading
Wide-flange columns are commonly used for the construction of special moment frames and braced frames. For special moment frames, design engineers routinely use deep sections to meet the stringent code-specified story drift limits in order to achieve economy in recent years. Columns with shallow and stocky sections are common for braced frame construction. Observation made from two recent experimental studies involving both deep and shallow columns under axial compression and cyclic drifts showed a variety of buckling modes. A classification with three cyclic buckling modes is proposed in this paper; subsets of each buckling mode are also presented. A parameter measuring the relative rotational restraint that the web provides to each flange is derived. After calibrating this parameter with the test results, a practical procedure that can predict the governing cyclic buckling mode is proposed.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Winston Churchill
“Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Risk being seen in all of your glory”
— Jim Carrey
From My Blog
Gülen Özkula
Educational Consultant at IdealEdu LLC.