Agent-based Modeling, Maching Learning, Algorithmic Marketing, Diffusion of Innovations, Online Communities
structure of scientific revolutions, dynamics of innovation, exploration-exploitation dynamics
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.
Agent-based modeling and simulation of public policies.
Assistant Proffesor at the Institute of Socio-Economic Geography, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Dr. Moira Zellner is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy, the director of the Urban Data Visualization lab, and is a research associate professor in the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy at UIC. Dr. Zellner has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in interdisciplinary projects examining how specific policy, technological and behavioral factors influence the emergence and impacts of a range of complex environmental problems, where interaction effects make responsibilities and burdens unclear. Her research also examines the value of complexity-based modeling for participatory policy exploration and social learning with stakeholders and decision-makers. Dr. Zellner also teaches a variety of workshops on complexity-based modeling of socio-ecological systems, for training of both scientists and decision-makers.
Applications of agent-based modeling to urban and environmental planning
Joseph is an Intelligence Community Postdoc Fellow (ODNI/NCTC) co-located with the faculty of the Department of Computational and Data Sciences at George Mason University. Since his first day of university training at age 15 and having earned his undergraduate degree in Engineering:Physics at age 19, his 15 years of industry experience has been diverse, ranging from industrial engineering to people analytics.
Dr. Shaheen earned his doctorate in Computational Social Science from GMU with a dissertation on economic policy and population-scale data analysis of Internal Revenue Service records. There, he studied all U.S. firms from a biologically-grounded perspective under the guidance of Professor Rob Axtell’s research group.
Following his U.S. State Department-funded assignment with the NATO STRATCOM Centre of Excellence where he conducted large scale analysis and provided policy recommendations in the fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, he has been a guest speaker on issues of Information and \textit{Social Media Warfare}–a term closely associated with his 2015 NATO report–at the Pentagon (J-39 SMA), NATO Defense Against Terrorism COE, National Defense University, OMCC and others.
A life-long scholar, Joe has received training from academic leaders in Social Network Analysis and has been recognized as an honorary Links Center Fellow in 2015 and by GMU’s Teaching Excellence award in 5 consecutive iterations.
He has appeared on CNN HLN, FOX NEWS, NBC News, Entrepreneur Magazine and has been invited to participate in the 2020 (postponed to 2021) Heidelberg Laureate Forum (Heidelberg, Germany) where he will spend time with fellow scholars of the mathematical and computer sciences as well as Fields Medal, Abel Prize, Turing Award, and Nevanlinna prize winners.
In his free time, Joe enjoys a sense of humor and practices portrait, landscape and wildlife photography. Even so - he admits, he has never been able to successfully take one decent photo of himself
Agent-based Modeling
Social Network Analysis
Network Science
Public Policy
Security Policy
Taxation Policy
Water resource economics, natural resource economics, environmental economics, ecological economic modeling, ecological economics, environmental policy, development economics.