Rukhsar Neyaz, Co-founder, Stellic

Enhancing Student Advising with AI

Rukhsar Neyaz (CMU 2015) majored in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, but she encountered challenges when she wanted to add a minor in business administration.

The requirements weren’t clear, and her adviser didn’t have complete information about the degree, so she abandoned the plan.

“That was what attracted me to work on Stellic,” Rukhsar says.

Stellic is a degree management tool that helps students, advisers, administrators and leaders in higher education collaborate with the goal of on-time graduation and career success.

Rukhsar co-founded the company along with fellow Tartans on the Rise Sabih Bin Wasi, her husband, and Musab Popatia.

Rukhsar focuses on implementation for new clients. It’s a complex task because Stellic draws data from disparate university areas including student information systems, course catalogs and learning management systems. Once the information is all gathered in the Stellic interface, it takes the manual work out of building a degree plan for every possible major. Students and university faculty and staff get a visual interface to track progress, ensure all requirements are noted and understand the implications of decisions such as changing or adding a major.

Stellic is used at 70 colleges and universities globally, and its innovative approach landed Sabih and Rukhsar on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Education list in 2019.

“Hopefully the situation I faced won’t be an issue for students anymore,” she says. “They have all the information at their fingertips to figure out things like how to change a major, what happens if they drop or add a course and how to add a minor. It helps students visualize their journey, and it also frees up advisers to focus on more important ways to help.”

Story by Elizabeth Speed