Kirkici named Auburn University presidential administrative fellow

Kirkici

Hulya Kirkici, professor in Auburn University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named Auburn University’s presidential administrative fellow for the spring 2015 semester.

The Presidential Administrative Fellowship program was developed to help select faculty members gain senior administrative experience. Fellows apply their academic expertise in planning a high-impact project for the campus community. 

For her project, “Best Practices: Mid-Career Women Academic Success in STEM Fields,” Kirkici will work exclusively with the Office of the President to collect data on how peer institutions enhance mid-career women faculty members in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. 

“My work is designed to complement Auburn’s strategic planning initiatives,” said Kirkici. “This includes supporting faculty excellence and strengthening Auburn’s reputation, as well as enhancing research scholarship and creative work.”  

She envisions her efforts will lead to proposals and programs that will enhance or establish institutional mentorship programs, cluster-hiring, research collaboration initiatives, institutional fellowship and institutional climate change for the Auburn family. 

Kirkici's research is in the fields of space power systems, dielectrics and electrical insulation in high altitude space environment and plasma physics. She has served as a visiting scientist and engineer for NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and for the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. 

A long-standing member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Kirkici has held a number of leadership roles, including vice president of the IEEE senior council, president of the IEEE dielectrics and electrical insulation society and member-at-large on the IEEE publication services and products board. In 2014, she received the IEEE William G. Dunbar Award “for continuing contribution to high-voltage and high frequency insulation research and engineering education.”