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Arash Badie-Modiri

Complex Networks Postdoctoral Researcher

Researching temporal networks, reachability properties, spreading processes, and decentralised federated learning. Currently working on distributed, explainable AI systems at the National Research Council, Italy.

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About Me

I am a Complex Networks postdoctoral researcher currently at the National Research Council, Italy. I successfully defended my doctor of science thesis at Aalto University, Finland in December 2022 on reachability and spreading processes on temporal networks.

My work spans temporal networks, their reachability properties and associated critical behaviour, as well as decentralised machine learning and computational social science problems. I'm comfortable developing analytical understanding of networks while designing and performing large-scale simulations of network dynamics in high-performance computing environments.

Currently, I'm participating in the "Social eXplainable Artificial Intelligence" project, analyzing the effects of real-world temporal and structural heterogeneities on the efficacy of distributed machine learning systems.

Research

Temporal Network Reachability and Spreading

Developing efficient methods for estimating limited waiting-time reachability on temporal networks. I showed that reachability phase transitions in temporal networks are in the directed percolation universality class and provided frameworks for analyzing reachability in empirical networks.

Decentralised Federated Learning

Analyzing and optimizing decentralised federated machine learning models through complex networks lens. Developed novel neural network initialization approaches based on eigenvector centralities to significantly improve efficacy.

Computational Social Science

Working on polarisation and misinformation in online social media, experimental design in crowdsourcing, and large-scale text and conversation flow analysis.

Network Algorithm Development

Created open-source software library "Reticula" with implementations of static, temporal, and temporal hypergraph network algorithms. Available in modern C++ with Python bindings for research community use.

Academic Timeline

  • 2023–Present

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    Central European University, Austria

    National Research Council, Italy

    Working on the Social eXplainable Artificial Intelligence project, analyzing how real-world temporal and structural heterogeneities affect distributed machine learning systems. Developed novel neural network initialization methods based on eigenvector centralities that significantly improve decentralized federated learning performance, demonstrating the connection between network structure and learning dynamics.

  • 2018–2023

    D.Sc. (Tech.) Computer Science

    Aalto University, Finland

    Thesis: Reachability and spreading processes on temporal networks

    Developed efficient algorithms for estimating limited waiting-time reachability on temporal networks and showed that reachability phase transitions belong to the directed percolation universality class. Created the open-source Reticula software library for temporal network analysis and established theoretical frameworks for understanding critical phenomena in time-varying networks.

  • 2015–2018

    M.Sc. Complex Systems

    Aalto University, Finland

    Thesis: Error and attack tolerance of public transportation networks: A temporal networks approach

    Studied robustness to random failures and targeted attacks and centrality measures in temporal networks, particularly focusing on public transportation systems. Developed temporal betweenness centrality measures that better identify critical network components compared to static approaches, analyzing 20 cities' transportation networks and demonstrating the importance of temporal perspectives in network vulnerability assessment.

  • 2010–2015

    B.Sc. Physics (Condensed Matter)

    Shahid Beheshti University, Iran

    Conducted research on the evolution of scientific communities in biomedical sciences by analyzing over 9 million abstracts from PubMed. Performed community detection in keyword co-occurrence networks across 5-year windows from 1980 to 2015, revealing patterns in the formation and evolution of research communities in medical fields.

Selected Publications

Preprints

Incivility and Contentiousness Spillover in Public Engagement with Public Health and Climate Science

Narimanzadeh, H., Badie-Modiri, A., Smirnova, I., & Chen, T. H. Y. (2025)

arXiv preprint • DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2502.05255

Initialisation and Network Effects in Decentralised Federated Learning

Badie-Modiri, A., Boldrini, C., Valerio, L., Kertész, J., & Karsai, M. (2024)

arXiv preprint (accepted for publication in Applied Network Science) • DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2403.15855

Journal Articles

Crowdsourcing subjective annotations using pairwise comparisons reduces bias and error compared to the majority-vote method

Narimanzadeh, H., Badie-Modiri, A., Smirnova, I. G., & Chen, T. H. Y. (2023)

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7(CSCW2), 1-29 • DOI: 10.1145/3610183

Reticula: A temporal network and hypergraph analysis software package

Badie-Modiri, A. & Kivelä, M. (2023)

SoftwareX, 21, 101301 • DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2022.101301

Directed percolation in temporal networks

Badie-Modiri, A., Rizi, A. K., Karsai, M., & Kivelä, M. (2022)

Physical Review Research, 4(2), L022047 • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L022047

Directed percolation in random temporal network models with heterogeneities

Badie-Modiri, A., Rizi, A. K., Karsai, M., & Kivelä, M. (2022)

Physical Review E, 105(5), 054313 • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.105.054313

Epidemic spreading and digital contact tracing: Effects of heterogeneous mixing and quarantine failures

Rizi, A. K., Faqeeh, A., Badie-Modiri, A., & Kivelä, M. (2022)

Physical Review E, 105(4), 044313 • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.105.044313

Efficient limited-time reachability estimation in temporal networks

Badie-Modiri, A., Karsai, M., & Kivelä, M. (2020)

Physical Review E, 101(5), 052303 • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.101.052303

Evolution of communities in the medical sciences: evidence from the medical words network

Shirazi, A. H., Badie-Modiri, A., Heydari, S., Rohn, J. L., Jafari, G. R., & Mani, A. R. (2016)

PLOS One, 11(12), e0167546 • DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167546

Book Chapters

Weighted Temporal Event Graphs and Temporal-Network Connectivity

Saramäki, J., Badie-Modiri, A., Rizi, A. K., Kivelä, M., & Karsai, M. (2023)

In Temporal Network Theory (pp. 107-130). Springer • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-30399-9_6

Theses

Reachability and Spreading Processes on Temporal Networks

Badie-Modiri, A. (2022)

Doctoral thesis, Aalto University • ISBN: 978-952-64-1051-7 • URN:ISBN:978-952-64-1051-7

Error and Attack Tolerance of Public Transportation Networks: A Temporal Networks Approach

Badie-Modiri, A. (2018)

Master's thesis, Aalto University • URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201806293772

View All Publications on Google Scholar →

Contact

Current Affiliations

National Research Council, Italy

Aalto University, Finland

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