Student Spotlight: Mohammed AlRizqi
August 25, 2025
Mohammed AlRizqi is a doctoral student in mechanical engineering from Saudi Arabia. He earned his B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from University College Jubail, M.S. in materials science and engineering from North Carolina State, and M.S. in integrated manufacturing systems engineering from North Carolina State and now studies processes that help users with complex systems under the guidance of Brian Kirby and Allison Godwin at Cornell.
What is your area of research and why is it important?
I design processes that help people make better decisions when dealing with complex systems—like education programs, manufacturing systems, or health care workflows. These systems often behave in unpredictable ways because of hidden feedback loops and interconnections. I build computer simulations with structured design methods to help stakeholders test their ideas, predict outcomes, and improve their designs before making real-world changes. This is important because it reduces risk, saves resources, sparks creativity, promotes sustainability across diverse social settings, and leads to smarter, more adaptable solutions in uncertain environments.
What are the larger implications of this research?
By improving how we design and govern sociotechnical systems, this research can raise the ceiling on what society accomplishes with limited resources. Simulation-guided design turns vague hunches into testable ideas, helping communities weigh trade-offs transparently and choose options that balance efficiency, fairness, and resilience. Over time, the approach could lead to production lines that waste less material, curriculum systems that balance rigidity and flexibility, and health care networks that withstand shocks. More broadly, it normalizes evidence-based design and thinking about complexity, empowering policymakers, engineers, and citizens to collaborate on ethical, durable, and adaptable solutions to pressing global challenges like climate change and health crises.
What did you learn from participating in Cornell’s Advocacy Day?
Advocacy Day showed me that discovery does not speak for itself—people must lend it a voice. Meeting staffers from Florida, New York, and Texas, I watched political priorities shift as researchers translated lab hours into human stories: the student mastering new math software, the patient living longer because of an algorithm, the postdoc whose visa depends on stable grants. Each anecdote landed only because it was paired with crisp numbers. I left resolved to weave such evidence-based storytelling into every classroom and committee room, ensuring that scholars, not outsiders, define the stakes of scientific progress for legislators and the public alike fully.
Why do you feel it is important to advocate for federal funding for research?
Federal research funding is the lubricant that keeps discovery’s wheels turning. Without stable dollars, labs stall and society forfeits its chance to reinvent the wheel—be that next-generation vaccines or cleaner turbines. Public investment seeds ideas too risky for private capital, yet history shows huge dividends: GPS, modern AC, and mRNA therapies all began as federally backed bets. Research acts as a long-horizon economic engine; breakthroughs take time, but their eventual payoff in jobs, industries, and competitiveness dwarfs the upfront cost. Advocating for funding therefore safeguards today’s curiosity, tomorrow’s prosperity, and the nation’s capacity for continual reinvention—for any advanced society.
What are your hobbies or interests outside of your research or scholarship?
My off-hours revolve around soccer, biographies, and lively salons. Pick-up matches give my systems brain a kinetic workout—reading the field, coordinating attacks, laughing through setbacks. Biographical books let me live many lives without repeating their owners’ mistakes; I mine obstacles and insights from Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Cornell alumnus Willis Carrier, who cooled the modern world. Finally, I host informal idea cafés where friends trade questions and half-baked theories, feeding collective curiosity. Together, these habits sharpen strategy, widen empathy, and remind me that knowledge grows fastest when shared in motion. They make learning an everyday adventure.
Why did you choose Cornell to pursue your degree?
Why Cornell? Because a single day here unspools like a choose-your-own adventure in scholarship. I greet sunrise with a flat white from Gimme! at Gates Hall, sketching ideas as mist lifts off Cayuga Lake. By mid-morning I’m swapping insights with human-centered-design scientists who ask how those sketches resonate with real users. After lunch, a systems engineering seminar reframes the same questions as interlocked feedback loops. And just when the schedule seems full, an email arrives: a former president will give next week’s campus talk—sign up fast. Few places blend nature, intellect, and serendipity so effortlessly.