Last Week:
Benjamin Weed

MSU staff member Nisreen Cain is passionate about building a better world.

She and her husband Jay founded greenstarkville.org, which promotes a healthier, greener and more beautiful city. Cain also helped create volunteerstarkville.org and made Earth Day an annual feature on the MSU campus.

"My part was to help move the community forward. I was only part of the movement; many others made it happen. I am very proud of all the activists in the Starkville community. They've taught me so much," she said.

Born in Jordan, Cain attended college at the Jordan University for Science and Technology, where she received her BSc in applied mathematics. She also taught beginning math and computer science while there. She then came to the U.S. in 2000 to get her graduate degree in computer science and engineering at MSU.

Cain interned at Google for a summer in 2005 before becoming a full-time employee at the National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center in 2008, where she works on building web applications for various state agencies in Mississippi. Her tasks as an IT manager vary from communicating with users, to facilitating tasks to her team, to designing and implementing software.

"My biggest focus is on motivating my team, and making sure that each member has what they need to succeed in their tasks," she said.

Named Starkville's Outstanding Woman of the Year in 2009, Cain credits her parents for teaching her that she has the power to make a difference and a responsibility to shape the world.

"I have a passion to fill in the gaps and defy the 'impossible' by taking on challenges. Sustainability, recycling and volunteering were all challenges in our community," she said. Cain also feels strongly about the worth of working through these challenges.

"Today, many people take the freedoms and rights we have in the United States for granted, forgetting the struggles and intentions that brought these changes," Cain said. "Nothing we have comes through chance or coincidence; there is very little of worth in our society that someone didn't fight for."

Next week … Ben Bailey !