What if you could see a disaster before it happened? What if you could intervene — not with guesswork, but with scientific certainty — before the damage, the headlines, or the heartbreak ever occurred?
That’s the question I answer every day through my work. My name is Sena Kizildemir, Ph.D., and I use advanced simulations to model how things fail — before they ever do! These failures can happen anywhere: in steel rails under a moving train, in a collapsing building during demolition, or even inside a tiny cardiovascular stent designed to keep someone alive. The scale may change. The mission doesn’t.
Growing up, I always had an insatiable curiosity about how things worked — and how they could break. Whether it was machines or materials, I was constantly asking, “What makes this fail, and how can we stop it?” It was this drive that brought me to the U.S. in 2016 where I pursued my graduate studies in civil and mechanical engineering.
At the heart of what I do is nonlinear finite element analysis, a technique that lets us simulate real-world behavior of structures under extreme conditions. Using this method, I’ve modeled everything from ground vibrations during explosive demolitions to crack growth inside modern rail systems. These aren’t just academic exercises. They’re tools that keep infrastructure safe and prevent catastrophes in the real world.
Take the stent project, for example. At first glance, it has nothing to do with collapsing buildings or public infrastructure. But zoom in, and the mechanics are strikingly similar: pressure, strain, material fatigue, complex geometry. I used the exact same core principles to understand how a stent would behave under the body’s internal forces as I did when simulating a high-rise building folding in on itself during a controlled implosion. That’s the beauty of simulation — you’re not tied to a particular scale or industry. If it has forces acting on it, I can model it.
This adaptability has allowed me to contribute to national research initiatives with the Federal Railroad Administration, helping to reshape our understanding of rail safety through groundbreaking work on subsurface crack propagation in steel rails. It’s also led me into high-stakes engineering work, like predicting whether demolition would trigger unexpected ground motion that could affect nearby facilities at a medical campus.
In all of these projects, my job is to answer the “what if” questions no one else can. What if a battery fire spreads through a building? What if a buried crack in a rail turns catastrophic? What if an explosion impacts a bridge? Simulation lets us get ahead of the headlines, offering clarity in chaos and turning uncertainty into insight.
I believe this work matters deeply. Not just because it’s cutting-edge, but because it’s behind the scenes, quiet, and essential. The kind of work that only gets noticed when something goes wrong — but when done right, prevents that moment from ever happening.
As a woman in a field that still doesn’t see many of us, I’ve had to build my own path. But I’ve also had the chance to shape how failure is understood and ultimately prevented.
I hope sharing my story sheds light on the invisible engineering that keeps our world safe, and shows others that whether it’s micro or massive, every system can be made better, stronger, and smarter — before it’s too late!
