Defne Ciliz

Defne Ciliz is a rising senior studying Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University. Her research experience includes work in impact testing of cellular structures at Columbia’s Carleton Laboratory under Professor Addis Kidane, where she explores drop tower methods, force sensors, and oscilloscope-based data analysis. She has also been involved in soft robotics research at Yale University, focusing on granular metamaterials and the modeling of 3D-printed gripper configurations. She joined the Burke Lab in the summer of 2025 and is beginning work on combustion modeling and alternative fuels, with a focus on hydrogen and ammonia reaction mechanisms. Her academic interests include energy systems, thermodynamics, and the intersection of experimental and computational approaches to sustainable engineering.