Stella Dak, Ph.D., P.E.
Principal Consultant
Get to know the expert
Background
Dr. Stella Dak is a licensed Professional Engineer with over 18 years of experience in civil and structural engineering, specializing in utility-scale solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) infrastructure. She has served as Engineer of Record (EOR) for more than 40 solar facilities across the United States and has led multidisciplinary engineering efforts spanning feasibility, design, construction, and technical due diligence.
Her expertise includes grading optimization, foundation systems, geotechnical evaluation, stormwater management, and infrastructure performance assessment. Dr. Dak has extensive experience aligning engineering design with constructability, cost, and schedule considerations, and has developed engineering frameworks to improve risk visibility and project reliability in large-scale energy developments.
She holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a focus on machine learning applications in structural systems and an MBA with distinction in management.
Education and Certifications
- Civil Engineering, Ph.D.: Southern Illinois University
- Business Administration, Master (with Distinction): Texas State University
- Civil Engineering, B.S.: Bogazici University
- Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.): Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming
- Dissertation Research Award: SIUC, Fall-Spring (2014-2015)
- NSF CMMI Engineering Research and Innovation Conference Fellowship (July 2012)
Publications
- Co-author, “Bridge Deck Runoff: Water Quality Analysis and BMP Effectiveness,” Fairbanks, AK.
- Research on machine learning applications in structural engineering, “A Novel Approach for Modeling Nonstationary Ground Motions,” (Ph.D. research), 2011-2015.
- Tezcan, Y. Dak-Hazirbaba, and Q. Cheng. (2016). “A Kernel-Based Mixed Effect Regression Model for Earthquake Ground Motions,” Journal of Advances in Engineering Software, June 7, 2016.
- Dak-Hazirbaba, and J. Tezcan. (2015). “Image-Based Modeling and Prediction of Nonstationary Ground Motions,” Journal of Computers and Structures (CAS), 2015.
- Tezcan, Y. Dak Hazirbaba, and Q. Cheng. (2014). “A Semi-Parametric Tool for Seismic Risk Management Applications,” Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Urban Disaster Reduction Sustainable Disaster Recovery: Addressing Risks and Uncertainty.
- Y, Dak Hazirbaba, and J. Tezcan. (2014). “A Novel Approach for Modeling Nonstationary Ground Motions,” H.V. Topping, P. Iványi (Editors), Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Computational Structures Technology, Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 56, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.106.56.
- Tezcan, Y. Dak Hazirbaba, and Q. Cheng. (2014). “Least-Squares-Kernel-Machine Regression for Earthquake Ground Motion Prediction,” B.H.V. Topping, P. Iványi (Editors), Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Computational Structures Technology, Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 47, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.106.47.
- Tezcan, Y. Dak Hazirbaba, and Q. Cheng. (2014). “Semi-parametric Tool for Seismic Risk Management Applications,” International Conference on Urban Disaster Reduction, Boulder, Colorado, USA, September 23-October 1, 2014.
- Dak Hazirbaba, and J. Tezcan. (2014). “A Novel Approach for Modeling Nonstationary Ground Motions,” 12th International Conference on Computational Structural Technology, Naples, Italy, September 2-5, 2014.
- Dak Hazirbaba, J. Tezcan, and Q. Cheng. (2012). “Maximum Direction to Geometric Mean Spectral Response Ratios using the Relevance Vector Machine,” Proceedings of 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
- Dak Hazirbaba, J. Tezcan, and Q. Cheng. (2012). “Maximum Direction to Geometric Mean Spectral Response Ratios using the Relevance Vector Machine,” 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal, September 24-28, 2012.
- Dak Hazirbaba, J. Tezcan, and Q. Cheng (2012). “Maximum Direction to Geometric Mean Spectral Response Ratios using the Relevance Vector Machine,” Poster Presentation. NSF CMMI Engineering Research and Innovation Conference, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, July 9-12, 2012.