Sonia Alikhah joined Kühne Logistics University as a PhD candidate in the field of food supply chain management under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Sandra Transchel and Prof. Dr. Hanno Friedrich in April 2022. With her research she contributes to the project "FabCity: Decentralized, digital production for urban value creation - Urban food production (ULePro)-". Her research focuses on the development and coordination of local food production and distribution networks.

Sonia received a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering in Shomal University and Culture Science University in Iran and Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. For her master thesis she developed one- and two-stage stochastic optimization models for humanitarian supply chain. The model was integrated into the NOLAN project in collaboration with 4Flow GmbH and TU Dresden. 

Besides her studies, Sonia gained academic and practical experience as a research assistant at the Institute for Industrial Production (IIP) and the Institute of Material Handling and Logistics (IFL), and as an intern at Bosch GmbH and Ferrero OHG mbH. She is also a member of the Student Lean-Clubs at KIT.