Dr. Kulturel's research interests are in modeling and optimization of complex systems and robustness under uncertainty. She uses exact solution methods such as mixed integer programming (MIP) as well as metaheuristic techniques such as Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithms, and Ant Colony Approaches with applications to facility layout, reliability, scheduling, etc. Dr. Kulturel's other research interests consist of women in Information Science and Engineering, and Teaching and Learning with Virtual Teams.

Exploration of the Effects of Race, Ethnicity and Socio-economic Class on Gender Stereotyping of STEM Disciplines, with Eileen Trauth, Lynette Kvasny, K.D. Joshi, Jan Mahar, National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Opportunities Award (ROA), $38,050, Apr 2009.

Collaborative Research:  Enhancing Learning Experiences in Partially Distributed Teams, with Rosalie Ocker and Mary B. Rosson from Penn State University Park, NSF, $115,055, Jan 2008.

Ramirez-Marquez, J.E., Kulturel- Konak, S., and Sanseverino, C.M.R., "Probabilistic solution discovery algorithm for the orienteering problem," International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, to appear.

Kulturel- Konak, S., Maurer, C.R. and Lohin, D.L., "Teaching Students How to Effectively Work in Virtual Teams," International Journal of Information Technology Project Management, to appear in November 2009.

Konak, A., Kulturel-Konak, S. and Azizoglu, M. "Minimizing the Number of Tool Switching Instants in Flexible Manufacturing Systems," International Journal of Production Economics, 2008, 116, 298-307.

Kulturel-Konak, S. , Coit D.W., and Baheranwala F., "Pruned Pareto-Optimal Front to the Multi-Objective System Redundancy Allocation Problem," Journal of Heuristics, 2008, 14(4), 335-357.

Konak, A. and Kulturel-Konak, S., "Ant Colony Optimization for the Minimization of the number of Tool Switching Instants in Flexible Manufacturing Systems," International Journal of Information Technology and Intelligent Computing, 2007, 2(2).

Kulturel-Konak, S., "Perspectives at the Beginning of the 21st Century," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 2007, 18(2), 273-284 .

Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Norman, B.A., "Bi-Objective Facility Expansion and Relayout Considering Monuments," IIE Transactions, 2007, 39(7),747-761.

Scheubrein, R. and Kulturel-Konak, S., "An Electronic Teaching Assistant for Basic Operations Management Methods," INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Issue on the Effective Use of Software in the MS/OR Classroom, 2006, 7(1).

Konak, A., Kulturel-Konak, S., Norman, B.A., and Smith, A.E., "A New Mixed Integer Programming Formulation for Facility Layout Problem," Operations Research Letters, 34, 2006, 660-672.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Norman, B.A., "Multi-Objective Tabu Search Using a Multinomial Probability Mass Function," European Journal of Operational Research, 2006, 169(3), 915-931.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Norman, B.A., "Layout Optimization Considering Production Uncertainty and Routing Flexibility," International Journal of Production Research, 2004, 42(21), 4475-4493.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Norman, B.A., Coit, D.W., and Smith, A.E., "Exploiting Tabu Search Memory in Constrained Problems," INFORMS Journal on Computing, Summer 2004, 16(3), 241-254.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Coit, D.W., "Efficiently Solving the Redundancy Allocation Problem Using Tabu Search," IIE Transactions, June 2003, 35(6), 515-526.

Konak, A., Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Nettleship, I., "Estimation of Shrinkage for Near Net-Shape Using a Neural Network Approach," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, April 2003, 14(2), 219-228.

Kulturel, S., Ozdemirel, N.E., Sepil, C., and Bozkurt, Z., "Experimental Investigation of Shared Storage Assignment Policies in Automated Storage/Retrieval Systems," IIE Transactions , August 1999, 31(8), 739-749.

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Kulturel-Konak, S. and Konak, A., "Reliable Network Server Assignment using an Ant Colony Approach," Proceedings of ESREL 2008- Annual Conference of European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA) and Society for Risk Analysis Europe (SRA-E) , Valencia, Spain, 22 - 25 September, 2657-2663.

Dallard, H., Lam, S., and Kulturel-Konak, S., “Solving the Orienteering Problem Using Attractive and Repulsive Particle Swarm Optimization,” Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration, Las Vegas, NV , 12-17.

Kulturel-Konak, S. and Coit, D.W., “Determination of Pruned Pareto Sets for the Multi-Objective System Redundancy Allocation Problem,” Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Multi-Criteria Decision-Making , Honolulu, HI, 390-394.

Konak, A. and Kulturel-Konak, S. “An Ant Colony Optimization Approach to the Minimum Tool Switching Instant Problem in Flexible Manufacturing System,” Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Scheduling , Honolulu, HI, 43-48.

Lam, S., Dallard, H., and Kulturel-Konak, S., “Particle Swarm Optimization Approach for Solving Orienteering Problem”, Proceedings of the IERC2006, Orlando, FL, CD-ROM format, 6 pages.

Konak, A. and Kulturel-Konak, S. , "Simulation Optimization with Tabu Search: An Empirical Study," Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, Orlando, FL, 2686-2692.

Kulturel-Konak, S. , Sayin, E., and Alpay, N., "A Collaborative Teamwork Experience Between Industrial Engineering Students of the Middle East Technical University and Business Administration Students of the Pennsylvania State University," Proceedings of the 2005 International SEFI Conference, Ankara, Turkey, 372-379.

Konak, A., Smith, A.E., and Kulturel- Konak, S., "New Event Driven Sampling Techniques for Network Reliability Estimation," Proceedings of the 2004 Winter Simulation Conference, Washington, DC, 224-231.

Liang, Y.-C., Kulturel-Konak, S., and Smith, A.E., "Metaheuristics for the Orienteering Problem," Proceedings of the 2002 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, Honolulu, HI, 384-389.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Konak, A., and Smith, A.E., "Minimum Cost 2-Edge-Connected Steiner Graphs in Rectilinear Space: An Evolutionary Approach," Proceedings of the 2000 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, San Diego, CA, 97-103.

Konak, A., Kulturel-Konak, S., and Smith, A.E. "Two-Edge Disjoint Survivable Network Design Problem with Relays," eds. Chinneck, J.W., Kristjansson, B., and Saltzman, M. Operations Research and Cyber-Infrastructure, Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series 47, 2009, 279-292, Springer, New York, USA.

Kulturel-Konak, S. and Konak, A., "A Local Search Hybrid Genetic Algorithm Approach to the Network Design Problem with Relay Stations," eds. Golden, B., Raghavan, S., and Wasil, E. Telecommunications Modeling, Policy and Technology, 311-324, 2008, Springer, New York, USA.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Konak, A., and Coit, D.W., "Multiobjective Metaheuristic Approaches to Reliability Optimization," ed. Levitin, G. Computational Intelligence in Reliability Engineering: Evolutionary Techniques in Reliability Analysis and Optimization, Studies in Computational Intelligence: 39, 37-62, 2006, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg.

Dengiz, O., Konak, A., Kulturel-Konak, S., Smith, A.E., and Nettleship,I.,"Neural Computing Approach to Shape Change Estimation in Hot Isostatic Pressing,"ed. Parmee, I.C.Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture V, 2002, Springer-Verlang, London.

Visiting Scholars

Dr. Berna Ulutas, Research Assistant, Osmangazi University, Ankara, Turkey. May 2009-May 2010 (funded by the TUBITAK, Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey and Osmangazi University). Studying Artificial Immune Systems applied to facility layout problems.