Research
I am excited about tackling fundamental problems at the interface of stochastic modeling, network science, and inference, particularly in the context of complex socio-technical systems (like social media platforms) that have an increasing grip on society and our everyday lives.
My doctoral research investigated how the network structure, specifically in the context of heterogeneous interactions, drives emergent properties in large-scale networked systems and how we can leverage this knowledge to improve system performance. My thesis contributed to i) balancing sparsity-connectivity trade-offs in network design for distributed systems and ii) modeling the spread of evolving contagions in high-stakes societal systems.
PhD Thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, Aug, 2024.
Selected Publications
[Balancing Sparsity-Connectivity Trade-offs in Distributed Network Design]
M. Sood, O. Yagan, Existence and Size of the Giant Component in Inhomogeneous Random K-out Graphs, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2023.
M. Sood, O. Yagan, On the Minimum Node Degree and k-connectivity in Inhomogeneous Random K-out Graphs, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2021.
M. Sood, O. Yagan, Tight Bounds for the Probability of Connectivity in Random K-out Graphs, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2021. (Best Paper Award)
E. Elumar, M. Sood, O. Yagan, On the Connectivity and Giant Component Size of Random K-out Graphs Under Randomly Deleted Nodes, IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) 2021 .
[Modeling the Spread of Evolving Contagions in Social Systems]
M. Sood, A. Sridhar, R. Eletreby, C. W. Wu, S. A. Levin, H.V. Poor, O. Yagan, Spreading Processes with Mutations over Multi-layer Networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023.
M. Sood, R. Eletreby, S. Kumar, C. W. Wu, O. Yagan, On the Interplay of Clustering and Evolution in the Emergence of Epidemic Outbreaks, 2024. Preliminary version presented at ICC 2023.