“This fellowship introduced me to science policy, and the tremendous support I received from the COVES director and my mentor helped me better leverage my skillsets.”

Summer Responsibilities: To ensure that Virginia accurately anticipates fluctuations in its General Funds revenues, Mohammed examined four decades of economic records and took initial steps to correlate decreases in Virginia’s General Fund with the national economy and cataloged eight options for balancing the state’s budget during economic downturns.

Background: Mohammed’s current research focuses on understanding the success of continuous improvement methodologies in public sector organizations, working closely with his advisor, Dr. Eileen Van Aken. He has also conducted research in other areas, including data science/analytics and simulation modeling and has published several conference proceedings and a peer-reviewed journal article. Besides his academic work, Mohammed is a team member of the transformational office on campus to conduct continuous improvement initiatives across university enterprises to improve processes and system outcomes.