Our People

Dr. Jean Mohammadi-Aragh believes that learning is fun and that we should leverage computing to improve learning. These two principles form Jean’s Perspective in Engineering Education and motivate her dedication to improving the ways in which we teach students to engineer.

Jean earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Engineering at Mississippi State and then spent several years creating scientific visualizations and virtual reality applications. Six years later she was happily designing what she calls “video games for scientists” when she was asked to guest lecture for a first-year engineering course. The experience was life-changing: Jean quit her job and went back to school! Earning her Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech enabled her to career-shift from helping scientists learn to helping students learn.

These days, Jean continues to learn through all of the fun research projects described on this website. Then, she uses her new knowledge to create engaging opportunities for undergraduate students to learn basic electrical and computer engineering concepts and for graduate students to learn how to engineer educational experiences with digital systems. Jean is especially passionate about welcoming students to engineering and supporting them in ways that help them find their home.

Phyllis Beck is a blend of art and science having completed an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at MSU and a Master’s in Computer Science. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2023. Her research focuses on applying Artificial Intelligence, Natural language Processing and Machine Learning techniques to the engineering education space. She has worked for companies including Profound Logic Software, the Air Force Research Laboratory in conjunction with Oak Ridge National Labs, and for Sandia National Labs conducting Natural Language Processing and AI research.

Her work has been presented in numerous conferences such as Frontiers in Education, American Society for Engineering Education and SIGCSE and at ASEE 2019 our team won the John A. Curtis Award. Most recently she was nominated and inducted into the Bagley College of Engineering Hall of Fame. Outside of research and programming she has a wide variety of interests including art, woodworking, hobby electronics, amateur radio, video-games and algorithmic trading and investing.

Graduate Students

Erik Brown is a career-long learner and leader. Over two decades with ExxonMobil, he, and the teams he has led, has served to support and maintain global Windows servers, spearheaded automated server provisioning, engineered unified authentication solutions, and, recently, developed hybrid operational-financial models using the Technology Business Management framework which provide data to IT leadership to aid in decision-making.

Erik graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and a Master’s Degree student in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in pursuit of a Master’s of Lay Ministry (incomplete), and currently is attending Mississippi State University as a Ph.D. student in Engineering Education. His interests are in gaining skills using Neural Networks and SVMs to identify potential insights that would aid in providing a business advantage to his company. He also is interested in researching ways to improve the tools used in a distance-based educational approach for all engineering students.

Danielle Grimes earned her with her B.S. in Biological Engineering in 2014 and her Ph.D. in Engineering Education in August 2019. Her dissertation was titled, “Investigating the Impact of Stereotype Threat on Engineering Students”. Danielle currently teaches engineering at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. Her research interests include diversity and inclusivity, stereotype threat, and women in engineering.

John Hutton has been in the Computer Engineering field since ’91 and has worked on RISC CPUs (HP PA-RISC), High End Server design (HP Superdome), and consumer electronics (Microsoft Surface products). He enjoys all phases of electronics design from architecture and design phases, to schematic and board implementation, to test and verification, and including lifetime support. After earning his Ph.D., John joined the Libscomb University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in August of 2022. He teaches a range of courses including computer architecture and embedded systems as well as circuits and special topics.

Sujan Poudyal had a penchant towards mathematics, science and research in general from his school days. His research areas are artifical intelligence and machine learning. After earning his Ph.D., Sujan joined the Cleveland State University Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in August of 2022.

Kristin Sandberg is a Mississippi State Bulldog through and through – earning all three of her degrees from MSU. After earning her bachelor’s degree, Kristin began her career with Chevron as an Instrumentation and Electrical Design Engineer. In this role she designed instrumented and electrical systems to ensure the safe and reliable operation of Chevron’s largest refinery in the U.S. located in Pascagoula, MS. During this time, Kristin earned her master’s degree in Industrial Engineering – Management Systems. Laster while working as a team lead for the instrumentation and electrical design group, Kristin was given the opportunity to be an adjunct lecturer for the Mississippi State Engineering on the Coast program. After teaching electrical engineering classes for two semesters, she had completely fallen in love with academia. She has a passion for preparing the next generation of engineers to be problem-solving, life-long learners. This passion led her to leave her career of over 8 years and pursue teaching and engineering education full time. After earning her Ph.D., Kristin joined the Mississippi State University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as a Assistant Teaching Professor. She loves that each semester is a chance to get better as an educator, and she continues to learn from each group of students she gets the pleasure to work with

Sou Sassi is a person who traveled the world, lived in different cultures, and encountered people from various countries. She earned her PhD in Engineering Education, and she holds a BS and MS in Aerospace engineering. Experiencing being a female in engineering in different countries, led her to conduct her multicultural disseration study. Her work focused on the cultural reasons that lead students to pursue an engineering career, and the reasons behind the large gender disparity in engineering in the US versus the gender parity in other cultures. Her interests vary from technical engineering to behavioral and cognitive engineering. The technical engineering aspect came from her MS project where she explored and designed CubeSats (small satellite). The cognitive and behavioral engineering comes from working on projects that explore the engineering identity and communities of practice. She currently lives in Austin Texas, where she works as a UX Researcher / Human Factor engineer.

Shaylin Williams is invested in identifying ways to improve the engineering education experience for future generations of engineers. In May 2020, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in General Engineering with a Business Administration Emphasis at the University of Mississippi. As a McNair Scholar, Shaylin worked on chemical engineering projects creating thermal barriers for food packaging and studying soil remediation. Additionally, she completed an REU uproject in healthcare engineering at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Shaylin recently completed her Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Mississippi State University where she previously worked on a longitudinal study researching how varying first-year experience structures affect students’ engineering identities and involvement in communities of practice. She also earned a Master’s Degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering with a Management Systems Concentration in December 2022. Shaylin now serves as an Assistant Professor for the University of Virginia’s First Year Engineering Center and is interested in learning more about what contributes to engineering students’ success, how they can get the most out of their undergraduate programs, and how programs can be better designed to cater to students’ needs.