Mugahed Izzeldin

Graduate Research Assistant

School of Computing, University of Utah | Aug 2021 - Present

• Conducting systems research in the Flux Research Group under Prof. Robert Ricci, focusing on cloud computing, mobile networks, reproducible infrastructure, and networked systems.
• I own a research software end-to-end, from design and implementation through experimentation, debugging, documentation, and publication.
• Designing and evaluating mobile core research infrastructure, including reproducible deployments using DevOps and cloud-native tooling such as Kubernetes, Nix/NixOS, and containerized network components.
• Supporting CloudLab/Powder research and infrastructure in a large-scale experimental cloud used by distributed systems and networking researchers.

5G Core Network Research Engineer

Celona Inc. | May 2022 - Aug 2022

• Contributed research and engineering expertise to Celona's private 5G network solutions.
• Investigated commercial 5G core behavior in private-network deployments, conducted performance evaluation, and published the findings in a peer-reviewed publication.
• Evaluated system behavior and deployment tradeoffs across mobile core, networking, and cloud infrastructure layers.

Core Network Engineer

Atlas Telecommunication | Mar 2021 - Aug 2021

• Managed LTE core, IP networking, and transmission operations for a private LTE network, with end-to-end responsibility across core, transport, and access-network interfaces.
• Diagnosed and resolved production issues across Packet core, routing, and transmission layers, coordinating resolutions and service restoration across technical teams.

Core & MPBN Back-Office Engineer

Huawei Technologies Sudan | Oct 2017 - Mar 2021

• Operated and supported mobile packet core and IP backbone systems for service-provider networks.
• Configured, tested, launched, and troubleshot GPRS roaming and integrations between core network elements and 2G/3G/4G radio access networks.
• Generated and analyzed packet-core and IP backbone KPI reports to identify and resolve service-impacting issues.
• Designed and developed internal tools for packet-core documentation, reporting, and analysis.

Core Network Planning and Optimization Engineer

MTN Sudan | Feb 2017 - Oct 2017

• Designed, dimensioned, and documented Packet core and IP core network changes for a mobile service provider environment.
• Analyzed service KPIs and coordinated network optimization to maintain performance, reliability, and service quality.
• Integrated new commercial services and data bundles into Packet core systems, defining change requests and operational procedures for production deployment.

NixCore Framework

Project Owner | nixcore.org

• Designed and currently maintain NixCore, a reproducible mobile network core framework for deploying, configuring, and evaluating 4G/5G core components using Nix/NixOS, Kubernetes, and declarative infrastructure.
• Built the framework to support repeatable research environments, reducing deployment drift, and making Packet core experimentation easier to reproduce and debug.
• I lead the project direction, implementation, documentation, and ongoing maintenance as an open-source research framework.
• Developed NixCore as the foundation for the research paper, "NixCore: Toward a Reproducible Mobile Network Core."

pomo Nix Package

Maintainer | NixOS package

Maintain the pomo package in Nixpkgs, contributing to open-source packaging, reproducible builds, version updates, and package quality for Nix/NixOS users.

Missing Semester Arabic Website

Maintainer | missing-semester-ar.github.io

I maintain the Arabic version of MIT's Missing Semester course website, supporting accessible technical education for Arabic-speaking students and engineers.

Raft-Based Key-Value Store

Implemented a distributed key-value store based on the Raft consensus algorithm, covering replicated state, leader-based coordination, and fault-tolerant system behavior.

Production Network Infrastructure Projects

• Designed and implemented production network services across ISP and Packet core environments, including DNS, RADIUS authentication, internet filtering, IPv6 designs, and GRX roaming architecture.
• Contributed to MTN Sudan's IP core migration between vendors and transition toward cloud-native infrastructure, including edge cloud integration, hardware expansion, and VNF scale-out for Packet core systems.

PhD in Computer Science

University of Utah | Expected Jun 2027

Research areas: systems, cloud computing, reproducible infrastructure, and mobile networks.

BSc. Hon Electronics Engineering (Honors)

Sudan University of Science and Technology

• Computer Architecture (CS 6810) - Fall 2021
• Operating Systems (CS 5460) - Spring 2022
• Network Security (CS 6490) - Spring 2022
• Graduate Algorithms (CS 6150) - Fall 2023
• Software and System Security (CS 6956) - Spring 2023
• Advanced Computer Networks (CS 6480) - Fall 2023
• Mobile and Wireless Networking (CS 6961) - Spring 2024
• Distributed Systems (CS 6450) - Fall 2024
• Programming Language (CS 6520) - Fall 2024

• "RaaS: How to Fix Mobile Roaming" Mugahed Izzeldin, Ryan W. West, Mary Ogunmola, and Robert Ricci. Manuscript under review, 2026.
• "NixCore: Toward a Reproducible Mobile Network Core" Mugahed Izzeldin and Robert Ricci. Manuscript under review, 2026.
• "Analysing the performance of commercial 5GC in private network deployment" Mugahed Izzeldin, Lyutianyang Zhang, Vanlin Sathya, Mohit Goyal, and Mehmet Yavuz. International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation, 2024.
• "Approaches for SMS encryption and user accounts verification" M. I. O. Hajahmed, K. E. M. Osman, and O. T. M. Ali. ICCCEEE20 Conference, 2021.
• "Confidential5G Trusted Execution of the 5G Core on Untrusted Clouds" Mary Ogunmola, Mugahed Izzeldin, Robert Ricci. Manuscript under review, 2026.
• "Implementation of SDN in a Campus NAC Use Case" M. I. O. Hajahmed, M. Adil, M. Omar, M. Khalid. B.Sc. (Honors) degree project.

• Attended ACM CCS 2024 and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2024.
• Certifications and coursework: Huawei HCIA Routing and Switching, CCNP ROUTE, CCNA, IPv6 workshop by AFRINIC, SQL, Python, data analysis, and web development.
• Volunteer service: IEEE Sudan Subsection Media Coordinator, IEEEXtreme proctor, IEEE SUST branch election organizer, and technical seminar presenter.