I'm Dagin. [DA-jin]

Guided by my research expertise in digital infrastructure governance, I design frameworks that close the gap between what technology promises and what institutions can manage.

Closing that gap involves taking a comprehensive account of the resources and relations required for:

Maintaining the status quo
Standards compliance
Implementing new systems
Sustaining the changes

That account should guide planning, deployment, integration, and maintenance. Without it, intended solutions quickly become expensive problems.

My published research produced

A methodology that local DOTs can use to integrate advanced simulators into their traffic management workflows to address safety and emissions concerns
An analysis of the procedural costs of municipal cyber risk management that maps the resource and relational demands they place on local governments

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I apply my experience with tracking those requirements to plan and deliver purposeful tech solutions that actually work for cities.

Consult Me

Publications

Applying research to practice

My work has been oriented around Governance, Risk, and Compliance and capacity building—not just analyzing governance and capacity inadequacies, but also in developing the frameworks that help institutions close those gaps.

Matching Technique with Authority: How Local DOTs Can Narrow the Gap Between Network Management Authority and Analytical Capacity

UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies · Policy Brief & Research Report · 2025

This research investigates the institutional gap between what the technology can do and what local departments of transportation are actually equipped to do with it. Advanced traffic simulation tools can dramatically improve how cities manage mobility equitably, but only if the agencies responsible for traffic management have the capacity to use them. The practical implication: technology adoption in the public sector is as much a governance and capacity problem as it is a technical one.

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The Transaction Costs of Municipal Cyber Risk Management

UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity · 2024

This white paper exposes the hidden costs that derail municipal cyber risk management — procurement, contracting, coordination, insurance negotiation, and compliance — that rarely appear in budget projections but consistently produce cost overruns and administrative strain. When cities invest in cybersecurity, the sticker price is rarely the real price. For technology companies selling into the public sector, this research is a map of where deals go sideways and why cities often can't absorb what vendors are offering, even when the product is sound.

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Smart City Governance and the Limits of Private Authority

Dissertation Research · UC Berkeley · 2025

When Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs attempted to develop a smart city testbed in Toronto, the project became a flashpoint for concerns about data governance and private sector overreach. Conventional analysis focused on public resistance. This research took a deeper look at why the project was structurally unable to succeed regardless of public sentiment. The finding: the Sidewalk Toronto partnership lacked genuine political authority from the outset, produced in part by private sector attempts to accelerate business development by bypassing direct engagement with public agencies.

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As Smart Cities Expand, So Do the Threats

Dark Reading · February 2024

Featured in one of cybersecurity's leading trade publications, this piece draws on original research into how the convergence of physical and digital systems in cities expands the attack surface that local governments must defend — often without the resources, frameworks, or institutional capacity to do so.

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