Portrait of Sepehr Ilami

Sepehr Ilami

PhD Student in Industrial Engineering • Northeastern University

Welcome! I'm a third-year PhD student in the department of Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. My research lies in Computational Social Science, Collective Behavior, and Multi-agent decision-making. I'm fortunate to be be advised by Babak Heydari. Previously, I got my BSc in Computer Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Iran, where I was born and raised.

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Research

My research is in Network Science and Multi-Agent Systems. I explore how intelligent entities—either humans or AI agents—coordinate and influence each other in networked environments. I work across two main areas:

Human mobility & collective behavior

Modeling how people move through networks and interact in urban settings; analyzing coordination, compliance, and emergent patterns during routine and high-stakes situations.

Multi-agent LLM systems

Building frameworks for distributed AI agents to collaborate, share information, and make collective decisions; studying incentives, governance, and robustness in agent societies.

My work sits at the intersection of computer science, social science, economics, and statistics—broadly described as network science.

Publications

Network Topology Matters, But Not Always: Mobility Networks in Epidemic Forecasting Arxiv preprint
S. Ilami, Q. Cao, B. Heydari • 2025
Instigating Cooperation among LLM Agents Using Adaptive Information Modulation Arxiv preprint
Q. Chen, S. Ilami, N. Lore, B. Heydari • 2024
Large Model Strategic Thinking, Small Model Efficiency: Transferring Theory of Mind in Large Language Models Arxiv preprint
N. Lore, S. Ilami, B. Heydari • 2024
COVID-19 Diagnosis with Artificial Intelligence Springer Chapter
R.G. Modegh, A. Salimi, S. Ilami, A.H. Dehqan, H. Dashti, S.H. Javanmard, H. Ghanaati, H.R. Rabiee • 2022

Working Papers

Computational Analysis of Collective Human Behavior Patterns During Pandemic Events
Connected Minds: How Misbelief is Contagious in Social Systems
Impact of Policy Intervention on EV Adoption Using An LLM-Based Agent Simulation Framework

Conference Presentations

Instigating Cooperation among LLM Agents Using Adaptive Information Modulation Oral • CESUN 2025, George Mason University, VA
Integrating Language Models with Agent-Based Modeling for Policy Analysis Poster • IC2S2 2024, University of Pennsylvania, PA

Get In Touch

I’m open to collaborations in computational social science, network science, and multi-agent systems. If you're also interested in these areas or have any questions, feel free to drop me an email or connect on LinkedIn! :-)

📧 ilami.a@northeastern.edu
📞📍 Northeastern University, Boston, MA

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