Michael C. Zargham

Research

I do research and development in service of operations and governance, not for its own sake. Each area below lists the problems, the systems I have worked on, the methods, and representative outputs. Outputs are marked as mathematical research, simulation, deployed work or research prototype, which shows how far each has gone toward operation.

Networked optimization and optimal control

Problems
How actors with only local information and local actions can reach resource allocations with provable global properties, and how far those guarantees survive uncertainty and adversarial behavior.
Systems
  • Communication and data-routing networks (accelerated backpressure; discounted integral priority routing).
  • Network flow and utility allocation (accelerated dual descent; distributed Newton methods).
  • Epidemic spreading and network protection (optimal allocation of vaccines and protection resources; worst-case behavior of centrality-based heuristics).
  • Networked adoption and strategic interaction (subscription decisions under positive externalities).
  • Operational decision systems in media and advertising (industry, 2014–2017).
Methods
Distributed optimization, convex optimization, control theory, network science, game theory.
Outputs

Mathematical research. Dissertation, Fast, Distributed Optimization Strategies for Resource Allocation in Networks (University of Pennsylvania, 2014). Representative papers: Accelerated Dual Descent for Network Flow Optimization (IEEE TAC, 2014); Optimal Resource Allocation for Network Protection Against Spreading Processes (IEEE TCNS, 2014); A Distributed Newton Method for Network Optimization (CDC 2009); Accelerated Backpressure Algorithm (GLOBECOM 2013); Game Theoretic Analysis of Customer Subscription Decisions in Networks with Positive Externality (CDC 2012). The full set is in Publications (2009–2014), together with a book chapter on bio-inspired allocation of protection resources in cyber-physical networks.

Deployed work. Decision systems for media operations at Cross MediaWorks / Cadent, 2014–2017, using control theory, signal processing, optimization, machine learning and distributed systems. Proprietary; nothing public.

Economic systems and institutions

Problems
How the structure of an economic or institutional system shapes the behavior that emerges within it, as actors respond to incentives and to one another, and how to design those structures so that the closed-loop behavior stays within acceptable bounds. Here the optimization and control methods move from complete systems, where the dynamics and objectives are specified, to incomplete ones in an open world, where the designer does not know the actors' objectives and the outcomes carry social and economic consequences.
Systems
  • Pricing, collateral and incentive mechanisms for shared digital infrastructure, including a robust-control pricing rule taken from design simulation through production deployment, monitoring and stakeholder governance over about three years.
  • Humanitarian community currency and cash-transfer systems, including work with the Danish Red Cross.
  • Governance of online and partly automated organizations.
  • Organizations represented as dynamical systems: functional decomposition, digital twins of organizations, artificial organisational intelligence.
  • Network economies modelled as stochastic dynamical systems.
Methods
I develop mechanisms and the software that carries them, operate and govern what we develop, and reflect on what that practice teaches. The methods are generalized dynamical systems, computational simulation, mechanism design, robust control, institutional analysis, and digital ethnography with collaborators from the social sciences.
Outputs

Mathematical research. Generalized Dynamical Systems Part I: Foundations (with J. Shorish, WU Vienna, 2022); Economic Games as Estimators (2020); From Curved Bonding to Configuration Spaces (2020); Block Diagrams for Categorical Cybernetics (2023); A Practical Theory of Fungibility (2021); Protocols and Institutions (book chapter, 2026).

Computational simulation and software. cadCAD (source): originator and lead architect since 2017; simulation built on generalized dynamical systems, now governed by the cadCAD Foundation. Simulation studies include Complex Systems Modeling of Community Inclusion Currencies (Computational Economics, 2024), On Modeling Blockchain-Enabled Economic Networks as Stochastic Dynamical Systems (Applied Network Science, 2020) and Evidence Based Decision Making in Blockchain Economic Systems (2020).

Deployed work. A robust-control pricing rule carried from simulation through production, monitoring and stakeholder governance (presented as Crafting Reliable Rules with Robust Control, PyData NYC, 2023).

Governance and institutions (with collaborators in ethnography, law and political economy). Toward a Participatory Digital Ethnography of Blockchain Governance (Qualitative Inquiry, 2022); Permissionlessness (Internet Policy Review, 2022); Building the Loop: The Role of Ethnography in Artificial Organisational Intelligence (EPIC 2025); Aligning “Decentralized Autonomous Organization” to Precedents in Cybernetics (MIT Computational Law Report, 2023); Method for Functional Decomposition of Organizations and Their Environments (2023); What Constitutes a Constitution? (2023).

Model-based systems engineering and assurance

Problems
How an engineering organization shows, reproducibly and with a named person accountable, that a system meets its requirements: what a requirement is, what counts as evidence, how evidence is tied to the artifact it describes, and which judgments stay with people. The engineering runs across many tools, which have to be connected rather than replaced. Through appropriate automation, scoped authority and explicit accountability, review loops can be accelerated while the assurances produced get stronger.
Systems
  • Engineering model repositories and collaboration infrastructure: version control for engineering models in OpenMBEE and Flexo MMS, including classification and resolution of merge conflicts.
  • Requirements traceability and evidence management: protocols combining RDF and Git; requirements expressed as behavioral envelopes.
  • Spacecraft attitude determination and control (ADCS) lifecycle models.
  • Contextual AI evaluation systems, with Humane Intelligence.
  • Knowledge organization and engineering assurance infrastructures.
Methods
SysML v2, formal and executable specifications, semantic web technologies, verification, validation, traceability, engineering assurance.
Outputs

Peer-reviewed and preprint. Formalizing Document Assurance: A Topological Framework for Verification, Validation, and Human Accountability (INCOSE International Symposium, 2026); Ontology-Based Contextual AI Evaluations (OB-CAIE) Methodology (arXiv, 2026); Derivations, Not Just Simulations: Teaching Applied Mathematics with Scientific Python (SciPy 2026, forthcoming).

Open-source infrastructure. OpenMBEE (GitHub): maintainer since 2026, guiding technical direction for the Flexo MMS project and working on version-control methods for engineering models and requirements traceability.

Research prototypes (2026; demonstrators, not operational systems).ADCS lifecycle demonstrator (source): requirements as behavioral envelopes with traceability of evidence and attestation in SysML v2. CAIE specification: contextual AI evaluation as an executable specification bound to systems and quality engineering standards. knowledgecomplex: typed simplicial complexes for assurance coverage, the basis of the INCOSE 2026 paper.

Talks. Requirements, Evidence and Attestation Traceability with Python and Flexo MMS, JAXA MBSE/MCE Workshop, 2026 (video, slides); Formalizing Document Assurance, INCOSE IS 2026 (slides); Derivations, Not Just Simulations, SciPy 2026 (video, slides).

The full record of appointments, publications and talks is in the CV.