Research Group Overview

The Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory designs, develops and implements simulation tools to understand large biological, information, social, and technological systems. For many reasons, which range from practical difficulty to the possibility of great harm, simulations are a uniquely capable medium in which representation and analysis can be performed. The need for simulations is derived from questions posed by scientists, policy makers, and planners involved with very large complex systems. Extremely detailed, multi-scale computer simulations allow formal and experimental investigation of large-scale systems. By enabling individuals to explore the potential impact of different interventions or strategies on the course of a disease outbreak or a specific transportation scenario, for example, important information can be prioritized as to the potential merits of different interventions.

The Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory is currently pursuing projects in the following programmatic areas: integrated high-performance simulation and data service architectures; human population dynamics and associated social networks in urban environments and at the national scale; epidemiology and the spread of infectious diseases; computational and behavioral economics and commodity markets; next generation computing and telecommunication systems; and computational systems biology.

The group has developed Simfrastructure, a service- and grid computing-oriented modeling tool for socio-technical, biological, and information systems and Simdemics, a scalable high-performance computing-based service environment for general reaction diffusion systems. Other recent milestones include the successful development of scalable algorithms for simulating epidemics and other reaction diffusion systems. A synthetic population has been created consisting of 300 million individuals endowed with daily activity patterns where the activities are performed at real locations. The EpiSims tool is being used by the National Institutes of Health Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study to support preparedness for potential disease pandemics.

Leader: Christopher Barrett