Dr. Burcin Cakir Erdener was a researcher at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder and is now employed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. She earned her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in 2002 and 2006 in Industrial Engineering and holds a Ph.D. in the same field since 2015. Prior to joining CU she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Industrial Engineering Department of Baskent University in Turkey. She is an accomplished researcher with proven theoretical and experimental record having significant expertise in energy network design and planning problems. She worked as a Research Fellow (Grantholder Cat 30) at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) Institute for Energy and Transport (Energy Security, Systems and Market Unit) on analyzing interactions between electricity and gas networks between 2013-2016. She designed a methodology and a new simulation tool to analyze the effects of interdependencies on the integrated power and gas network in case of failures. She is highly experienced in development of mathematical and simulation models in various network related projects, including evaluation of projects and creating innovative solutions for complex problems. She has several published papers and conference journals focusing on energy networks and also a book chapter on Simulation.