MISSISSIPPI CODING ACADEMIES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director and Senior Instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Gulf Coast
Andrew S. Stamps is director and senior instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Gulf Coast campus. Stamps is a computer scientist specializing in graphics and visualization. The first of his family to attend and complete college, he has two degrees in computer science, a B.S. from Dillard University with minors in fine arts and mathematics, and an M.S. from Mississippi State University.
Stamps is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in computer science from MSU. As a lifelong learner, Mr. Stamps has also received research grants from NASA, the MSU Bagley College of Engineering, and Microsoft.
Stamps has work published in IEEE Vis conference proceedings, and the NASA Space Grant Consortium conference. He served as an IEEE Vis conference chair from 2011-2014. He has also worked as a software developer at Georgia Pacific, as a lead developer as Spatial Information Solutions, and as a team leader at IBM.
Job Titles:
- Board Member and MCA State Director
- Chairman of the Mississippi Coordinating Council for Remote Sensing
Bob Buseck is a self-described "IT guy" currently the Chairman of the Mississippi Coordinating Council for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems and formerly the Chief Information Officer for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Since his time serving in the U.S. Army as a Signal Support Systems Specialist, he's worked in a variety of information technology administrator and director roles.
Job Titles:
- Manager for Amazon 's Artificial Intelligence
Dr. Nashlie H. Sephus is the Applied Science manager for Amazon's Artificial Intelligence (AI) focusing on fairness and identifying biases in the technologies. Prior to working as the CTO of Partpic, she received her Ph.D. from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014. She received her B.S. in Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University (2007). Dr. Sephus is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and a graduate of Murrah High School/Power Academic and Performing Arts Complex (APAC).
Job Titles:
- Board of Directors
- Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach at Mississippi State
Eric Hill is the executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach at Mississippi State University. He believes in the potential for young entrepreneurship and technology startups in Mississippi.
Glenn McCullough, jr. led economic development and community programs that resulted in record private capital investment, job growth in higher-income jobs, and
global export trade. Before MDA, he was Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and was a former mayor of Tupelo, Miss.
Job Titles:
- Senior Instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Downtown Jackson Campus
Herbert Brown is senior instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Downtown Jackson Campus and South Jackson Campus in partnership with DSC Training Academy.
He previously served as a teacher for the Algebra Project at Lanier High School in Jackson from 2006-2010. He later worked as a financial aid counselor at Tougaloo College.
Currently, he serves on the board of directors for the Algebra Project as treasurer. Brown received a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Jackson State University and a bachelor's degree in Finance from Mississippi College.
Job Titles:
- Instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Golden Triangle
Jessika Hayes is the instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies' Golden Triangle campus. Born and raised in Columbus, Hayes is a graduate of Columbus High School and Mississippi Coding Academies. She studied Visual Art and Graphic Design at the Mississippi University for Women for two years before transferring to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division where she studied Graphic Design/Web Design for a year.
In July of 2019, after graduating MCA, Hayes accepted the full-time position as Columbia Municipal School District's first Coding Facilitator. There she worked with Bulldog Bytes, a computer science camp for children, helped establish the Columbus Cyber League, a club for girls in grades 3-5, facilitated a summer coding program called "Athletes For Computer Science, and served as a judge for the 2020 Major League Hacking Hackathon and Mississippi State University.
Job Titles:
- Board of Directors
- Division Director of the Entrepreneur Center
Joe Donovan is currently the Division Director of The Entrepreneur Center @ Mississippi Development Authority. The Entrepreneur and Innovation Center focuses on developing an environment that ‘raises entrepreneurs' and building an entrepreneurial eco-system targeting next generation technologies. Specifically developing the Mississippi economy through technology-based economic development. Donovan has been best described by the Mississippi Business Journal as a "serial entrepreneur."
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Chairman
- Retired Executive
Mike Forster is a retired executive with more than 50 years of sales, marketing, and general management experience in the information technology industry. Most recently, he served as the CEO and Chairman of CommerceQuest, Inc., a SaaS (software as a service) company located in Tampa, FL. From 2017 to 2019, he was Chairman of the Innovate Mississippi board of directors.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Board of Directors
We lost co-founder Richard Sun in the spring of 2022. Rich focused on start-up and high-growth companies, as a private equity investor, adviser, board member and executive. He played a key role in nine startup companies, has invested $230 million in four early-stage companies for institutional private equity investors and personally invested in thirteen others. He was the first Entrepreneur in Residence at Innovate Mississippi from 2017 to 2018.
Job Titles:
- Secretary
- Treasurer
- President and CEO for Innovate Mississippi
Tony Jeff serves as the president and CEO for Innovate Mississippi and is a technology evangelist who regularly speaks on emerging trends and strategies in technology and innovation commercialization. Tony has overseen the coaching of more than 1,200 entrepreneurial ventures and consulted with companies that have successfully raised more than $170 million in private-equity financing.
Job Titles:
- Board of Directors / Community Programs Director
- President of the DSC Training Academy
Willie Jones is president of the DSC Training Academy with 30 years of experience in workforce development Wille Jones is determined to create diversity in the job market and serve the needs of women and underserved young people in the Jackson Metro area.