Babak Heydari
Associate Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Co-Program Director, Engineering Management
Affiliated Faculty, School for Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Affiliated Faculty, Network Science Institute
Office
- 177 HU, 1218
- 617.373.5507
Lab
- Dana 245
Related Links
Research Focus
Socio-technical systems, systems engineering and design, social and economic networks, resilience of networked systems, computational social sciences, platform-based systems, sharing economy systems, computational social sciences, game theory, artificial intelligence
About
Babak Heydari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Co-Program Director of the Master of Science in Engineering Management program. He is also Director of the Multi-AGent Intelligent Complex Systems (MAGICS) Lab, and affiliate faculty at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Network Science Institute. His research interests include socio-technical systems, artificial intelligence, systems engineering and design, social and economic networks, resilience of complex systems, computational social sciences, platform-based systems, sharing economy, and computational social sciences. He holds several leadership positions such as Chair of Executive Committee, Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN); Associate Editor of the Wiley Systems Engineering Journal and the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design; Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, ETH-Singapore Program Future Resilient Systems; and Member of the scientific advisory board of Future Resilient Systems (FRS). Dr. Heydari is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. He earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Education
- Ph.D., EECS, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
- M.Sc., EECS, University of California, Berkeley, 2005
- Graduate Certificate, UC Berkeley, Management of Technology, 2006
- B.Sc., EE and Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology, 2002
Honors & Awards
- 2022 College of Engineering Faculty Fellow
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award
- Wiley Systems Engineering Journal Best Paper Award
- Best Paper Award, Journal of Systems Engineering, 2016
Leadership Positions
- Co-Director of the Engineering Management Program
- Chair of Executive Committee, Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN)
- Associate Editor, Wiley Systems Engineering & ASME Journal of Mechanical Design
- Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee, ETH-Singapore Program Future Resilient Systems
- Member of the scientific advisory board of Future Resilient Systems (FRS)
Research Overview
Socio-technical systems, systems engineering and design, social and economic networks, resilience of networked systems, computational social sciences, platform-based systems, sharing economy systems, computational social sciences, game theory, artificial intelligence
Modern engineered systems are increasingly connected, with complex interactions among social and technical aspects, both during the design process and after fielding. While traditional engineering design has focused on designing an optimal technical artifact, there is an increasing recognition that social and organizational aspects of how designers collaborate and create, and how systems co-evolve with the human and built environments through use, are equally important drivers of value. Additionally, the rise of new sources of data and increased availability thereof creates many opportunities to extend design research into the sociotechnical realm.
My research takes a sociotechnical perspective towards the design and governance of complex engineering systems, bringing together elements of technical design, models of human behavior, and policy and regulation perspectives.
Selected Research Projects
- No One Lives in a Bubble: Incorporating Group Dynamics Into Epidemic Models
- – PI, NSF
- Design and Governance of Complex systems
- Network Science and Multi-Agent Systems
- AI in Systems Engineering
- Computational Methods for Policy Design
Department Research Areas
Selected Journal Publications
- Cao, Qingtao, Heydari, Babak (2022). Micro-level social structures and the success of COVID-19 national policies. Nature Computational Science, 2(9),595-604. 10.1038/S43588-022-00314-0
- Abouk, Rahi, and Babak Heydari. “The immediate effect of COVID-19 policies on social-distancing behavior in the United States.” Public Health Reports 136.2 (2021): 245-252.
- Chen, Qiliang, Babak Heydari, and Mohsen Moghaddam. “Leveraging Task Modularity in Reinforcement Learning for Adaptable Industry 4.0 Automation.” Journal of Mechanical Design (2021): 1-35.
- Ke, Laiyang, Dan O’Brien, and Babak Heydari. “Airbnb and Neighborhood Crime: The Incursion of Tourists or the Erosion of Local Social Dynamics?.” Available at SSRN 3725823 (2020).
- Heydari, Babak, Pedram Heydari, and Mohsen Mosleh. “Not all bridges connect: Integration in multi-community networks.” The Journal of Mathematical Sociology 44.4 (2020): 199-220.
- A.Ehsanfar, B. Heydari, An Incentive Compatible Scheme for Electricity Cooperatives: Axiomatic Approach, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grids, 9(2), 2018, 1416-1424
- M. Mosleh, B. Heydari, Fair Topologies: Community Structure and Network Hubs Drive Emergence of Fairness Norms, Scientific Reports, 2686(7), 2017
- M. Mosleh, K. Dalili, B.Heydari, Distributed or Monolithic? A Computational Architecture Decision Framework, IEEE Systems Journal, 1(12), 2016, 125-136
- B. Heydari, M. Mosleh, K. Dalili, From Modular to Distributed Open Architectures: A United Decision Framework, Systems Engineering, 19(3), 2016, 252-266
- M. Mosleh, P. Ludlow, B. Heydari, Distributed Resource Management in Systems of Systems: An Architecture Perspective, Systems Engineering, 2016, 19(4), 362-374O
- D.A. Gianetto, B. Heydari, Sparse Cliques Trump Scale-Free Networks in Coordination and Competition, Scientific Reports, 6, 2016
Aug 21, 2024
$1M NSF Award for Modeling Group Behavior To Fight Epidemics
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari, in collaboration with CSSH Professor Dan O’Brien (Public Policy), COS Associate Professor Gabor Lippner (Math), and CSSH Professor Silvia Prina (Economics), was awarded a $1 million NSF grant for “No One Lives in a Bubble: Incorporating Group Dynamics Into Epidemic Models,” to build computational models for group behaviors.
Aug 20, 2024
Exploring the Strategic Behavior of Large Language Models
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari’s research on “Strategic Behavior of Large Language Models and the Role of Game Structure Versus Contextual Framing” was published in Scientific Reports.
Sep 23, 2022
Do Micro-Level Social Interaction Parameters Effect Pandemic Policy Success?
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari’s research on “Micro-level Social Structures and the Success of COVID-19 National Policies” was published in the Nature Computational Science journal.
Apr 15, 2022
Faculty and Staff Awards 2022
Congratulations to all the winners of the faculty and staff awards, and to everyone for their hard work and dedication during the 2021-2022 academic school year.
Apr 16, 2020
Social distancing is controlling Covid-19; now scientists need to figure out which measures are most effective
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari was featured in the Stat News article “Social distancing is controlling Covid-19; now scientists need to figure out which measures are most effective“
Apr 15, 2020
Determining Which Social Distancing Policies are Effective
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari is analyzing COVID-19 data to see which social distancing policies are the most effective.
Jun 19, 2019
Heydari Receives NSF CAREER Award
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari was awarded a $490K NSF CAREER grant for “Architecting Products to Balance Innovation and Competition in Business Ecosystems”.
Apr 09, 2019
FY20 TIER 1 Award Recipients
25 COE faculty and affiliates were recipients of FY20 TIER 1 Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants for 18 different projects representing up to $900K dollars of investment in research.
Oct 04, 2018
Heydari Voted as CESUN Chair-Elect
MIE Associate Professor Babak Heydari was voted as chair-elect of the executive committee for the Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN), with the anticipation of assuming the chair position in 2020.
Aug 30, 2018
New Faculty Spotlight: Babak Heydari
Babak Heydari joins the Mechanical & Industrial Engineering department in August 2018 as an Associate Professor.