Mozhdeh Forghaniarani
Lecturer in Mathematics

Dr. Mozhdeh Forghani holds a Ph.D. in Applied Statistics from the University of Northern Colorado, where her dissertation focused on developing Bayesian approaches for analyzing brain fMRI data using mixtures of Gaussian random fields. She also earned an M.Sc. in Statistics from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.Sc. in Statistics from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran.

Before joining Longwood University as a Lecturer in Mathematics, Dr. Forghani served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at James Madison University, where she taught a range of undergraduate statistics courses and worked as a consultant in the Research Consulting Lab. Her teaching experience also includes graduate-level courses in multivariate analysis and sampling methods.

Dr. Forghani’s research interests lie at the intersection of Bayesian statistics, high-dimensional data analysis, and random functions. Her current research focuses on developing Bayesian approaches for estimating variance–mean mixtures of multivariate normal distributions, as well as conducting educational research on how instructors’ beliefs about students influence classroom policies and academic outcomes. She is also preparing publications based on her doctoral work, which involved modeling brain fMRI data using mixtures of random fields.