About

I'm Özgün Barış Kır, an engineer and researcher based in Chicago, USA. My academic and technical work sits in the intersection of artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, and decision science. I am also interested in high-tech entrepreneurship, how complex systems behave, and social sciences in general. 

I'm a PhD candidate in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University, advised by Prof. Diego Klabjan, currently working on how to detect mitigate hallucinations in multi-step LLMs. Before Northwestern, I completed an MPhil in Data Science and Econometrics at the Tinbergen Institute (University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, VU Amsterdam) with a thesis on contextual optimization and reinforcement learning for battery storage systems in electricity markets, and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering at Bilkent University. Along the way, I've researched and done consultancy projects on stochastic network optimization for pharmaceutical supply chains, energy-grid algorithms, crowd-sourced delivery, and generative models for microbial peptides, and worked as a VC fellow, consultant and data scientist at ScaleX Ventures, Mastercard Advisory and McKinsey & Company.

Outside of that, I climb mountains, run marathons (aspiring Ironman?), lift weights, and do some sauna. I am a humble follower of Platon's idea of harmony between a strong body and a strong mind. Curiosity and discipline are my North Star.

My curiosity for different cultures, languages, and ways of living brought me to more than 35 countries so far, 4 of which I've lived long term. I plan to share some interesting stories from my journeys here too.  

Curriculum vitae

You may find my CV down below.

Download CV (PDF)

Elsewhere

I'm on LinkedIn, which is the best place to reach me.