Prehistoric archaeology of hunter-gatherer societies in Mesoamerica and American Southeast; comparative analysis of urban form and service provision; social inequality; complex adaptive systems; cultural evolution.

Complex Adaptive Systems, Data Analytics and Visualization

My research interests include policy informatics and decision making, modeling in policy analysis and management decisions, public health management and policy, and the role of public value in policy development. I am particularly interested in less mainstream approaches to modeling that account for learning, feedback, and other systems dynamics. I include Bayesian inference, agent-based models, and behavioral assumptions in both my research and teaching.
In my dissertation research, I conceptualize state Medicaid programs as complex adaptive systems characterized by diverse actors, behaviors, relationships, and objectives. These systems reproduce themselves through both strategic and emergent mechanisms of program management. I focus on the mechanism by which citizens are sorted into or out of the system: program enrollment. Using Bayesian regression and agent-based models, I explore the role of administrative practices (such as presumptive eligibility and longer continuous eligibility periods) in increasing enrollment of eligible citizens into Medicaid programs.

I work in the field of complex adaptive systems, specializing in multi-agent systems, simulation, machine learning, collective intelligence, self-organization, and self-adaptation. I am interested in contributing to innovative projects and research in these domains.

My experience spans across multiple large-scale international research projects in areas such as green urban logistics, blockchain for nuclear applications, autonomous robotics systems and simulation of biological neural networks.

Agent-based computing in economics and finance
Large-scale agent-based models
Agent models calibrated by micro-data
Complex adaptive systems
Mathematical analysis of agent systems

Computational Archaeology, Food Production, Forager-Farmer transition, Neolithic, Agro-pastoralism, Erosion Modeling, Anthropogenic Landscapes, Geoarchaeology, Modeling and Simulation, GIS, Imagery Analysis, ABM, Mediterranean

My research interests include collective action, social ecological systems, large-scale software systems engineering, model componentization and coupling, and finding effective ways to promote and facilitate good software engineering practices for reusable, reproducible, and interoperable scientific computation.

Muaz is a Senior Member of the IEEE and has more than 15 years of professional, teaching and research experience. Muaz has been working on Communication Systems and Networks since 1995. His BS project in 1995 was on the development of a Cordless Local Area Network. In 1996, his postgraduate project was on Wireless Connectivity of devices to Computers. In addition to his expertise as an Communications engineer, his areas of research interest are in the development of agent-based and complex network-based models of Complex Adaptive Systems. He has worked on diverse case studies ranging from Complex Communication Networks, Biological Networks, Social Networks, Ecological system modeling, Research and Scientometric modeling and simulation etc. He has also worked on designing and developing embedded systems, distributed computing, multiagent and service-oriented architectures.

My main research interest is the application of computer simulation to study human-centric complex adaptive systems. I am a strong advocate of Object Oriented Agent-Based Social Simulation. This is a novel and highly interdisciplinary research field, involving disciplines like Social Science, Economics, Psychology, Operations Research, Geography, and Computer Science. My current research focusses on Urban Sustainability and I am a co-investigator in several related projects and a member of the university’s “Sustainable and Resilient Cities” Research Priority Area management team.