Research

Research Overview:

  Research Areas

1: Dynamic, efficient, and practical control policies for epidemics

My work has focused on proving parameter-independent structures for the containment of dynamic spreading processes using optimal control theory, and applying them to real-world problems in public health and analogous problems in wireless networks and network security.

These structures are important because the availability of fine-grained data, as well as the ability to change actions over time, can lead to state-space explosion for policy design as well as unrealistically complex proposed policies. I show how these structures can simplify difficult non-convex optimizations and provide easily implementible distributed policies.

I have applied this approach to evaluate a real-world intervention vs a dynamic counterfactual optimal policy, which is a methodological contribution.

2: Optimizing constrained and dynamic networked interventions

My work has focused on showing how limited information availability and dynamic policies can change approaches to seeding networked interventions (i.e., social influence and incentives that lead to changes in behavior, choices, and beliefs).

I have addressed key applications in public health, marketing, and sociology in multiple inter-disciplinary collaborations using techniques from optimal control and game theory:

  1. optimal seeding strategies under partial network visibility

  2. optimal budget allocation across time for an electoral campaign (including the development of a new centrality measure)

  3. the effect of incentives and whistleblowing policies on ethical behavior within an organization

  4. the effect of social comparison and group norms on social group stability

Prior areas:

Energy-aware information dissemination and monitoring in ad hoc networks: My main contribution has been to create efficient, distributed, and energy-aware algorithms to create and maintain connectivity in wireless ad hoc networks

Grid-scale integration of distributed storage: My main contribution has been to create a novel method for the efficient operation of microgrids with distributed renewable generation and storage using rigorously derived dynamic prices for microgrid batteries, and creating a synthesis of offline electric vehicle charging methods and identifying major remaining challenges


  Invited talks

  1. Modeling COVID-19 in-hospital patient flow for capacity-planning
    1. Yale University, Yale Postdoctoral Association Virtual Seminars, June 2020
  2. Dynamic surveillance and contact-tracing policies for outbreaks
    1. Yale University, Yale Institute for Network Science Summer Seminar, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), June 2019
  3. Dynamic control of spreading processes on networks
    1. Yale University, Yale Institute for Network Science Colloquium, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), January 2019
  4. Decision-making tools for influence propagation in social systems
    1. University of Michigan, Communication and Signal Processing Seminar, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, July 2018
  5. You scratch my back, and (maybe) I'll scratch yours: whistleblowing games on networks
    1. Yale University, Yale Institute for Network Science Seminar, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), June 2018
  6. Social influence maximization: a synthesis
    1. Yale University, Human Nature Lab (HNL), Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), March 2018
  7. Influence in social systems
    1. Yale University, Yale Institute for Network Science Seminar, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), July 2017
  8. Optimal control of epidemics (and opinions) in the presence of heterogeneity
    1. Cornell University, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, July 2015 (remotely)
    2. Georgetown University, Bansal Lab, Biology Department, July 2016
    3. Yale University, Yale Institute for Network Science Seminar, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), July 2016
    4. University of Pennsylvania, Complex Systems Group, Electrical and Systems Engineering Department, July 2016
    5. University of Georgia, Rohani Lab, Biology Department, July 2016
    6. Pennsylvania State University, Ferrari Lab, Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD), Biology Department, July 2016 (remotely)
    7. Harvard University, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, July 2016
    8. Yale University, Crawford Lab, Yale School of Public Health, July 2018