I’m a postdoc researcher at DTU Compute & the Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS) and part of the Nordic Pandemic Preparedness Modelling Network. I’m curious about questions that transcend disciplines and everyday life, especially those that can enhance public health and bridge the gap between theory and practice. I use data to understand social behavior and develop citizen-driven solutions to tackle epidemiological challenges. I have a background in physics of complex systems and hold a D.Sc. in computer science from Aalto University. As a writer and the editor-in-chief of Sitpor, I’m involved in science communication. You can read more about me here.

Latest Papers

• What is emergence, after all?, PNAS Nexus 2026
• Homophily Within and Across Groups, Nature Communications (2025)
• Strength and Weakness of Disease-induced Herd Immunity in Networks, PNAS (2025)
• Effectiveness of Contact Tracing on Networks with Cliques, Phys. Rev. E 109, 024303
• Herd Immunity and Epidemic Size in Networks with Vaccination Homophily, Phys. Rev. E 105, L052301
• More ...

Latest Talks

• What is emergence, after all?
  SBU – Tehran, Dec 01, 2025 — Slides
• Social & Special Landscape of COVID-19 Immunity in Denmark
  Center for Pharmaceutical Data Science Education, Copenhagen, Oct 3, 2025 — Slides
• Review of Reviews: Emergence, timing, and influence of review articles
  ICSSI – Copenhagen, Jun 18, 2025
• Homophily Within and Across Groups 
  CCS S2025, University of Siena, Sep 4, 2025 — Slides
• Introduction to Network Epidemiology (Lecture)
  Technical University of Denmark – DTU Compute, Feb 03, 2025 — Slides
• Science Communication in the Network Science Community 
  CX Talks – CS Dept. of Aalto University, Jun 25, 2024 — Slides, Video
• Network Interplay: Competing Effects on Herd Immunity
  NetPLACE, May 16, 2024 — Slides
• Consequences of Social Network Structure for Epidemic Interventions
  IT University of Copenhagen, May 14, 2025 — Slides
• Story Arcs, Success & Diffusion of Turkish TV Dramas
  Complex Networks 2024 – İstanbul, Dec 11, 2024 — Slides
• More ...

Books

• Doctoral Thesis:
  Spreading and Epidemic Interventions: Effects of Network Structure and Dynamics, March 2024, Slides, PDF & More
• Chapter:
  Weighted Temporal Event Graphs and Temporal-Network Connectivity, Springer 2023

Research Affiliations and Networks

• Nordic Pandemic Preparedness Modelling Network, 2025 – present
• DTU Compute, 2024 – present
• Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS), 2024 – present
• Denmark Statistics, 2024 – present
• Aalto Complex Systems Group, 2020 – present
• NordicMath Covid, 2020 – 2024

Community Services & Projects in Science Communication

• Deep Dive workshop at Danish Digitalization, Data Science, and AI – D3A
• Sitpor.org
• Sitpor_Media
• Complexity for Pedestrians
• “#ComplexityExplained”

Contact/Follow me

• Gmail: abbascarimi
• Bluesky: abbasrizi.bsky.social
• Google Scholar
• ResearchGate: Abbas K. Rizi

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.
“But which is the stone that supports the bridge?” Kublai Khan asks.
“The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,” Marco answers, “but by the line of the arch that they form.”
Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: “Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.”
Polo answers: “Without stones there is no arch.”

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino