Zehranaz Dönmez Varol received her Ph.D. in 2024 from Bilkent University, Department of Industrial Engineering, where her research focused on equitably distributing in-kind donations with uncertain availability in the aftermath of a disaster using mobile points of distribution. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral project at the Professorship of Business Analytics & Intelligent Systems at the Technical University of Munich. Her research focused on the ambulance dispatching problem, considering uncertain emergency calls and equitable emergency service provision.

Her research addresses logistics challenges in uncertain environments, with a particular emphasis on humanitarian and healthcare applications. She is a recipient of the EURO WISDOM YoungWomen4OR Award (2024) and has been supported by multiple research fellowships from TÜBİTAK, including doctoral and international postdoctoral scholarships. She has teaching experience in Humanitarian Logistics at Bilkent University, with a focus on Operations Research applications in disaster preparedness and response.