"OK, what you want to do is 'not Deleuze'. Accept that, but this is not a cause for despair. Look for a new way to present your engagement with Deleuze while retaining your interest in modeling. Presenting your project as having to do with Deleuze from the start is becoming an impediment to your progress. You are banging you head against a brick wall convincing both the Deleuzeans and the modelers that this project is 'for them'. When faced with an intellectual problem or difficulty, sometimes the best way to proceed is not to find an answer, but rather to ask how that problem came to be a problem and what stands in the way of its possible resolution. In your case, start with the difficulty-- what is it about Deleuze that leads many experts on his work to think that his thought has no bearing on the kind of modeling that is important for the social sciences? You may have more success engaging your professors if you start with the problem."