Abbas K. Rizi
Networks, Epidemics & Social Behavior 🇩🇰
Postdoc Researcher at DTU Compute & SODAS
Editor-in-chief & Science Writer at sitpor.org
abbas.sitpor.org
- If you have an Iranian colleague or friend, this is likely how they feel theses days:
- "When the internet is severed, the diaspora is not just worried; we are psychologically confused and helpless." healthydebate.ca/2026/01/topi...
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziWe're already in the phase that each of us (Iranians) by now know someone killed/injured in our circle of friends/family. And this is despite the continued internet blackout, when millions haven't still managed to hear from their family/friends since Thursday, January 8th. This tells a lot ... 😥😥
- How did we decide to call a tree “tree”? A bird “bird”? Not now, but in the early days, when there could have been different ways to name or define something. On Language & Poetry | A short post I wrote over the Christmas holidays; abbas.sitpor.org/2025/12/28/o...
- What if birds of a feather flock together, but only at specific group sizes? www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is the focus of our new paper, now published in Nature Communications. We introduce a new network model and show how to model and measure homophily to incorporate group variations.
- Science is supposed to know no borders, until every major conference in my field picks the most hostile country to travel to as its venue 💆🏼 #Epidemics10 #NetSci2026 #CCS2026 #IC2S2 🇺🇸
- “I have always tried to live in an ivory tower; but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it.” Doing science in contemporary academia, with its endless pressure to please grant committees, often feels like this Flaubert’s complaint in an 1872 letter to Turgenev.
- What you expect the least from the reviewers and the editor is exactly checking for the main claims!
- Doing non-causal inference (and being explicit about it), yet using a causal word as second word in the title. If you pay Nature € 10.690, they will publish this in Nature Ageing. I can tell you what I think of that for free. www.nature.com/articles/s43...
- “Physicists are very good and famous for getting the right answers for the wrong reasons.” Why? Here’s a clue: noisy philosophizing! Sean commenting on Nima's talk, Two Cheers for Shut Up and Calculate, at the Natural Philosophy Symposium 2025
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- We should switch from paper to screen posters—more eco-friendly and far more engaging. Elisa’s poster already showed us how creative this can be. @elisamurators.bsky.social @cssociety.bsky.social
- Thrilled to announce the Best Poster Awards at CCS2025 go to Simay Atasoy Bingöl, Salvatore Citraro, and Elisa Muratore — congratulations! 🏆✨ #CCS2025
- Thank you for this opportunity. The slides of my talk & the preprint are available at abbas.sitpor.org
- Excited to present 2 of our recent works at @css-conference.bsky.social “Social & Special Landscape of Covid-19 Immunity in Denmark” - Tue at 15:30, Room 13 - Thu at 12:30, Old Chapel Room “Homophily Within and Across Groups” - Thu at 10:30, Room 13, CSS Satellite
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- @jsaramak.bsky.social you will love this! Permanent link to this comic: xkcd.com/833/
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziAll the keynote recordings are available now, enjoy! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
- AI & Public Health: Between Hype and Hope — Interview with Samir Bahtt youtu.be/L-_pFPOZvV0 From outbreak forecasting to shaping public policy, AI promises transformative impacts—but what are its true capabilities and limitations? @sjbhatt.bsky.social
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- What if #herd_immunity isn’t just about how many people are immune, but how they’re 'spatially' connected? Our new PNAS paper explores this concept. We show how the topology and geometry of social networks influence the dynamics of herd immunity, whether it arises from infection or #vaccination. 1/2
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- What is #emergence, after all? arxiv.org/abs/2507.04951 We unpack its meaning across science & philosophy, drawing on examples ranging from physics to bird flocking & epidemics. We feature how #herd_immunity emerges as immune individuals form overlapping firewalls that grow into a dominant shield.
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziMy "Math, Revealed" series is freely available to anyone -- no paywall! -- in the thread below.
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- @sunelehmann.com got me thinking: Are there things that will always remain beyond human understanding, but not for AI? Is there a cognitive upper bound for us—due to our biology—much like a cat can't grasp the mathematics of spacetime curvature? Oh, and the reference totally sealed the deal 😄
- Straight to my CV 🤭 I was heavily featured in @sunelehmann.com 's ICSSI dinner talk. ( dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn... relates a bit to Sune's talk)
- Today was the opening of the @icssi.bsky.social in Copenhagen—a remarkable gathering. But, for the first time in my life, I found myself unable to hear a word in a conference. My mind remained fixed—utterly and immovably—on the faces of those I love in #Iran. 1/3
- In this episode, @jsaramak.bsky.social shares his personal journey into Network Science. Jari talks about his motivation and research methods as well as how he selects interesting scientific questions. He emphasizes the importance of collaborative partnerships. youtu.be/HwdZS6Fy8X8
- 🎶 Temporal networks as music? Jari’s audio demo makes temporal networks audible—and it’s oddly mesmerizing. Wild stuff—hear it for yourself and find more here: jarisaramaki.fi/2024/03/19/t... @jsaramak.bsky.social @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziHurray! 🎉 @arash.network (left) is the 24th recipient of the Zachary's Karate Club CLUB prize. For his talk @netsciconf.bsky.social NetSci 2025, he was entrusted with the illustrious trophy 🏆 from @nwlandry.bsky.social #networkscience networkkarate.tumblr.com
- Cool hypergraph approach for modeling homophily explicitly at each interaction size! Samantha told us how shifting homophily across hyperedge sizes can amplify inequality in who gets timely information—a perfect hypergraph companion to our clique-layer story. arxiv.org/abs/2412.07901 #netsci2025
- If you're looking for a quite handy multitype branching process framework for modeling diffusion in networks with communities check this work by @davidjpos.bsky.social and friends. @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025
- Modeling diffusion in networks with communities: A multitype branching process approach journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...
- 🎶 Temporal networks as music? Jari’s audio demo makes temporal networks audible—and it’s oddly mesmerizing. Wild stuff—hear it for yourself and find more here: jarisaramaki.fi/2024/03/19/t... @jsaramak.bsky.social @netsciconf.bsky.social #netsci2025
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- If Petter's talk sparked your curiosity, his blog will feed it: petterhol.me/blog And here's a great interview on why and how he writes: youtu.be/Wtjo7eWE76E @pholme.bsky.social deserves a best blog award @netsciconf.bsky.social!
- Homophily isn’t a uniform property—it varies within and across groups. Time to model that properly! Interested and at #NetSci2025? See you at 👇 - Tue at 15:00, Network Geometry Satellite, FPN Groene zaal or - Wed at 17:30, Multilayer Networks Parallel Session, 0.10 Sydney @netsciconf.bsky.social
- The US has long been an uneasy and unfair conference venue for researchers not from the global north! This time is more inclusive, tho! You know, "Then they came for the Jews, And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, And there was no one left, To speak out for me"
- “Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears” www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziIceLab Camp: FREE #TRAINING for #PhD students and #Postdocs eager to explore science across boundaries! Learn how to ask questions, craft interdisciplinary research proposals & have fun doing it. September 23–26 near Umeå Apply by June 9 www.umu.se/en/icelab/ca... #complexsystems #complexityschool
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- We had a unique and inspiring symposium on infectious disease epidemiology at Stockholm University. Tnx to the organizers, speakers, and all attendees for the engaging and fruitful discussions. You can view my slides here: lnkd.in/db8ZFw5X
- Now that #AcademicTwitter is fading and some of us have moved here, I’m thinking of positive cultural improvements, like sharing the actual insights from the talks we attend! I’d love to see more than just the celebrity cameo in my feed.
- "The mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing." George Orwell's 1946 essay on Politics and the English Language www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziI am hiring PhD students and Postdocs to join me in beautiful Copenhagen. Together, we will develop data science methods to improve epidemic preparedness. Copenhagen is amazing, salary is good, we have plenty of funding, and a great community. Read more..: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
- Reposted by Abbas K. RiziThere are days in life that shake you. I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University & academic career... 1/🧵
- Writing a paper be like spending 8 hours reading 6 papers to write one sentence citing 2 references—then deleting it the next morning. "A carpenter does not sit on his shavings. You have to be ruthless with your material! If it takes attention away from [the main message], throw it away at once."
- Walk down the street of any city, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be. J. Baldwin
