Dr. Arkun's research interests are in process dynamics, modeling and control of chemical and biological systems. Research topics include modeling, model predictive control, large scale complex sand hierarchical systems, optimization, protein folding and systems biology. Current application areas are polymerization reactor systems, refinery operations and proteins.

Dr. Arkun has held visiting positions at Tennessee Eastman, DuPont and Weyerhauser companies. He has served as the North American editor of Journal of Process Control and Associate Editor of Automatica. He has been a trustee and secretary of Computer Aids in Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation, and a director of Computers and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of AIChE. He is the 1986 recipient of the Donald P. Eckman Award given by the American Automatic Control Council

Dr. Arkun received TÜBİTAK (The Sientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) Science Award in 2004. He was elected to TÜBA (Turkish Academy of Sciences) in 2006.

Dr. Arkun is a member of the Scientific Board of TÜBİTAK.