Burcu Bayraktar Capkin
Current roles
PhD Student at Sapienza University of Rome
Main experiences
Burcu Bayraktar Capkin is a PhD Student in Transport and Infrastructure Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome (2025–2028), where her research focuses on digital modelling, infrastructure systems, and data-driven approaches to transport challenges. From November 2024 to May 2025 she served as a Research Collaborator at Sapienza, contributing to a UN-funded project on AI-based satellite imagery classification and supporting European proposal development (Horizon-CL5, MUR FISA). Between June 2024 and March 2025 she collaborated on project proposals and tender preparation, helping define impact, dissemination, and commercialization strategies.
Prior to her research roles in Italy, Burcu worked in practice in Turkiye across design, construction, and project management. From April 2021 to October 2023 she was a Civil Engineer at BB Construction, where she performed static structural analysis, project monitoring, bureaucratic coordination, and BIM modelling for infrastructure and building projects. Her earlier projects include leading the headquarters reconstruction for BB Yapi (October 2020–April 2021), designing and supervising a two-storey tire factory in Gaziantep (August 2021–August 2022), contributing to modernization and digitalization projects (June 2022–June 2023), and delivering static designs for housing and village complexes during roles at Platinum Architecture and Guvenoglu Construction (2020). In 2022 she also led the static design for a half Olympic pool (February–December 2022) and worked with ENGARC on static project design and BIM workflows (January–December 2022).
Education
Burcu’s education includes a BSc in Civil Engineering from Ege University (2013–2019), an MSc in Environmental & Sustainable Building Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome (2023–2025) with a thesis on distracted driving KPIs using Trendline Project data, and ongoing doctoral studies at Sapienza (2025–2028). She is a member of the Turkish Chamber of Engineers and has received national awards in arts and STEM competitions. Her technical toolkit includes Revit, STA4CAD, IDECAD, SAP2000, QGIS, METASHAPE, RECAP, AutoCAD, MS Project, and photogrammetry/BIM integration techniques. She is a native Turkish speaker, fluent in English, and currently developing her Italian.