Mugahed Izzeldin

Graduate Research Assistant

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

• Conduct systems research in the Flux Research Group under Prof. Robert Ricci, focused on cloud computing, mobile networks, reproducible infrastructure, and networked systems.
• Build and evaluate software infrastructure for mobile core research using Linux, Nix/NixOS, Kubernetes, and containerized network components.
• Own research software across design, implementation, experiment execution, debugging, documentation, and publication.
• Support CloudLab-related research and infrastructure activities in a large-scale experimental cloud environment.

5G Core Network Research Engineer

Celona Inc. | May 2022 - Aug 2022

• Supported research and engineering work for Celona's private 5G network solutions.
• Analyzed commercial 5G core behavior in private-network deployments, contributing to performance evaluation and publication-quality research.
• Worked across mobile core, networking, and cloud deployment layers to investigate system behavior and deployment tradeoffs.

Core Network Engineer

Atlas Telecommunication | Mar 2021 - Aug 2021

• Managed LTE core, IP networking, and transmission operations for a private LTE network.
• Troubleshot production issues across packet core, routing, and transmission layers, coordinating fixes 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.
• Monitored service KPIs and coordinated optimization work to maintain network quality and reliability.
• Integrated new marketing services and data bundles into packet-core systems while documenting change requests and operational procedures.

NixCore Framework

Project Owner | nixcore.org

Designed and maintain NixCore, a reproducible mobile network core framework for deploying, configuring, and evaluating 4G/5G core network components using Nix/NixOS, Kubernetes, and declarative infrastructure.

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 NixOS users.

Missing Semester Arabic Website

Maintainer | missing-semester-ar.github.io

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 including DNS, RADIUS authentication, internet filtering, IPv6 pilot design, and GRX design for ISP/mobile-core environments.

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

• "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.