Michele Fattoruso received his Bachelor of science in computer science in 2015 with a research thesis on cloud computing from the University of Napoli Federico II, Italy. He then joined Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL, where he worked for two years in the Scientific Computing Division. He joined the lab with Dr. Giabbanelli for a summer research position and continued to collaborate, resulting in a publication shortlisted for the best paper award at ACM SIGSIM PADS 2019.
Published work: Cofluences: Simulating the spread of social influences via a hybrid agent-based/fuzzy cognitive maps architecture
Cole is a graduate student of Computer Science at Northern Illinois University. His background is in musical composition & historiography. His current research interests include mapping real-world systems in logical space, data visualization, and computational aesthetics. Cole worked with the DACHB lab from mid-2018 to 2019.
Published work: Mechanisms for Cell-to-cell and Cell-free Spread of HIV-1 in Cellular Automata Models
Eric Lavin started as an undergraduate student at Northern Illinois University. He did his honors thesis with Dr Giabbanelli, and decided to keep working in the lab as a graduate student. His first publication was in the Winter Simulation conference, and his second publication in the Spring Simulation multi-conference. His SpringSim paper won the awards for best paper in the conference track, and for best paper overall. Eric is particularly experienced working in data science (including simulations and machine learning) using Python and statistics.
Masters Thesis: Assessing and supporting the use of fuzzy cognitive maps to simulate complex phenomena
Published work: An online environment to compare students' and expert solutions to ill-structured problems
Published work: Applying data mining to the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey
Magda Baniukiewicz joined the DACHB Lab in 2015, after completing her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. Her thesis combined simulations, visualizations, and network analysis. A prolific young researcher, by the time she graduated in 2017, she had published two articles, had two more under review, and received two awards. Her thesis was passed with no revision. Shortly after, she became a Junior Data Analyst at Qiagen Business Services in her home city, in Poland.
Masters Thesis: Analyzing, Simulating, and Visualizing Complex Social Systems
Venkata Sai Sriram Pillutla was a masters student and a research member of the DACHB lab in the department of Computer Science, at Northern Illinois University. His thesis, supervised by Dr. Giabbanelli, focused on text analytics, in combination with visualization and simulation techniques. Before joining Dr. Giabbanelli's lab, Sriram graduated from Acharya Nagarjuna University in India, and worked as software engineer. After his thesis was passed with no revisions, Sriram joined Argonne National Laboratory as research intern. He remains keenly interested in Big Data and text analytics.
Masters Thesis: Helping users learn about social processes while learning from users: developing a positive feedback in social computing.
Jacqueline was funded by the Research Rookies program at Northern Illinois University to get a research experience, and she chose to join the DACHB lab. She discovered research by helping others on multiple projects. With Magda Baniukiewicz, she ran a study on novel visualizations to make sense of large simulation datasets. She also worked with Eric Lavin to analyze the literature on computational models for obesity. Jacqueline was 'the voice' of the lab by producing some of the videos explaining our work. While in the lab, she was also in the Honors Program, and a Presidential Scholar.
Published work: Identifying the Components and Interrelationships of Smart Cities in Indonesia: Supporting Policymaking via Fuzzy Cognitive Systems
Published work: The artificial facilitator: guiding participants in developing causal maps using voice-activated technologies
Published work: From social media to expert reports: the impact of source selection on automatically validating complex conceptual models of obesity
Tanner Verigin graduated in 2015, with both a Master in System Dynamics and a Master in Business Administration. He was co-supervised by Dr Philippe J. Giabbanelli (right; then at the University of Cambridge) and Dr Pal I. Davidsen (at the University of Bergen, Norway). Tanner's thesis, consisted of developing a new system dynamics model for the population of British Columbia (Canada). His thesis looked beyond generally accepted drivers of weight such as diet and exercise. It provided a comprehensive simulation model, showing how feedbacks between individual and environmental factor can impede one's ability to maintain a healthy weight. Results from his thesis were published as Supporting a systems approach to healthy weight interventions in British Columbia by modeling weight and well-being, at the 49th Annual Simulation Symposium in 2016. Following his degree, Tanner became team lead at Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and a Fortune Global 500 company.
Masters Thesis: Beyond diet and exercise: A system dynamics approach to understanding the relationships between weight and well-being.