People

Most of my work happens alongside students and staff. I lead the Network Science and Social Network Analysis at the U (NetSNAU) research group, and I mentor and advise students at the high-school, undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels.

Current

  • Sima Najafzadehkhoei (2024–present) — Ph.D. student in Biostatistics, Population Health Sciences, University of Utah. Mentor and research assistant supervisor. Computational epidemiology, agent-based models, and machine learning.

  • Anibal Olivera (2024–present) — Ph.D. student in Social Complexity, Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile. Mentor and research assistant supervisor. Network science and R package development.

  • Olivia Banks (2024–present) — Undergraduate honors student, double major in Computer Science and Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Utah. Mentor and research assistant supervisor. Software development and computational epidemiology.

  • Eric Anto (2023–present) — Ph.D. student in Biostatistics, Population Health Sciences, University of Utah. Dissertation committee member.

Past

  • Andrew Pulsipher (2025) — Data scientist on the ForeSITE team, the CDC Insight Net center led by the University of Utah. Research assistant supervisor. R packages and tooling for outbreak analytics. Now Software Engineer at PointClickCare.

  • Jake Wagoner (2025) — Staff, Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, University of Utah. Co-supervisor and mentor. Tool development for ForeSITE. Now a graduate student in computer science and Software Engineer at PassiveLogic.

  • Hyrum Thomas Diesen (2024–2025) — Ph.D. student in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah. Mentor.

  • Derek Meyer (2022–2024) — M.Sc. student in Population Health Sciences, University of Utah. Supervisor, research assistant supervisor, and thesis committee member. Agent-based models for epidemics. Now Biostatistician at the University of Utah Data Coordinating Center.

  • Jacqueline M. Kent-Marvick (2022–2024) — Ph.D. in Health Sciences, College of Nursing, University of Utah. Mentor. Network science and social network analysis. Now Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah College of Nursing.

  • Katherine (Kayleigh) Lawson-Michod (2022–2024) — Ph.D. student in Clinical and Translational Epidemiology, Population Health Sciences, University of Utah. Qualifying exam chair and dissertation committee member. Now a postdoctoral fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

  • Porter Bischoff (2023) — Undergraduate student, Utah Valley University, Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) at the University of Utah. Mentor. Network visualization with R. Now a medical student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

  • Luis Lopez (2022) — Postbaccalaureate fellow, National Institutes of Health. Mentor. Exponential-family random graph models.

Working with me

If you are interested in network science, statistical computing, or computational epidemiology, feel free to set up a meeting.