Hazhir Rahmandad

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Hazhir Rahmandad

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Hazhir Rahmandad is the Schussel Family Professor of Management Science and a Professor of System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Hazhir's research shows how complex organizational dynamics can lead to heterogeneity in organizational practices and outcomes. He has analyzed how organizations learn in the presence of delays between taking action and observing the results, and has shown through empirical data and simulations the resulting learning challenges. Hazhir's strategy research has explored the shape of organizational performance landscapes, capability development tradeoffs under competition, and erosion of organizational capabilities through adaptation traps. In another stream of work he has studied public health problems, including COVID-19, obesity and depression dynamics, and comparing different modeling methodologies in application to epidemics, among others. Hazhir also contributes to expanding the dynamic modeling toolbox through advancing parameter estimation and validation methods for dynamic models.

Hazhir has published in diverse journals including Management ScienceOrganization ScienceStrategic Management Journal, Strategy Science, Journal of Operations ManagementInternational Journal of Obesity, Lancet Planetary Health, and System Dynamics Review, among others. He has been a reviewer for over 30 NIH and NSF panels and over two dozen different journals, and his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and private sector firms.

Hazhir holds a BS in industrial engineering from Sharif University of Technology and a PhD in management with system dynamics concentration from MIT. Before joining MIT Sloan in 2015, Hazhir was an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Honors

Hazhir Rahmandad wins Jay Wright Forrester award

Publications

"Evolution and Reproducibility of Simulation Modeling in Epidemiology and Health Policy over Half a Century."

Jalali, Mohammad S., Catherine DiGennaro, Abby Guitar, Karen Lew, and Hazhir Rahmandad. Epidemiological Reviews. Forthcoming.

"How Does Network Structure Impact Socially Reinforced Diffusion?"

Sassine, Jad Georges, and Hazhir Rahmandad. Organization Science Vol. 35, No. 1 (2024): 52-70.

"How Do Employer Practices Affect Economic Mobility?"

Kelly, Erin L., Hazhir Rahmandad, Nathan Wilmers, and Aishwara Yadama. ILR Review Vol. 76, No. 5 (2023): 792-832.

"How Valuable is COVID-19 Vaccination?"

Hazhir Rahmandad, Evan Feldman, Angie Moon, and Babak Heydari. In International System Dynamics Conference, Chicago, IL: 2023.

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Recent Insights

Press

Which countries can accept a “new normal” of living with COVID-19

In their new research paper Professors Hazhir Rahmandad and John Sterman studied the COVID-19 pandemic across 93 countries and how their responsiveness to COVID risks affects future COVID disease.

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MIT Sloan Experts

Why there is no long-term tradeoff between lives and livelihoods in the pandemic

This counter-intuitive result emerges because countries actually have little choice in how much they must reduce contact levels to control the epidemic.

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Media Highlights

Press Source: ProQuest

The pandemic's future

An MIT team suggests that global infections were 12 times higher and deaths 50% higher than officially reported.

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Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems

This complex problem solving course introduces participants to MIT's unique, powerful, and integrative system dynamics approach to assess problems that will not go away and to produce the results they want. Through exercises and simulation models participants experience the long-term side effects and impacts of decisions and understand the ways in which performance is tied to structures and policies.

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