Dr. Boggs comes to Missouri with an extensive background in higher education. He hails from the Colorado Department of Higher Education where he served as the Deputy Executive Director as well as the Chief of Staff to the Executive Director. Prior to his role in Colorado, Dr. Boggs worked across many areas of higher education, including the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and the Kentucky General Assembly. Dr. Boggs also has experience working within both public and private institutions of higher education.

Dr. Boggs earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wake Forest University, a master’s of education from The College of William and Mary, a Ph.D. in Higher Education Policy Studies from the University of Virginia, and completed the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

Dr. Mohammad (Mo) Dehghani became chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2019. Under his leadership, the university received a $300 million gift from Fred and June Kummer to establish the Kummer Institute for Student Success, Research and Economic Development and the Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development. It remains the largest single gift to any university in Missouri.

His visionary leadership also led to a period of unprecedented expansion at Missouri S&T that continues today, including creating the Arrival District to welcome students and visitors to campus. The district includes the Innovation Lab for students that opened in February 2024 and a Welcome Center that will be completed in 2025. Construction is underway on the Missouri Protoplex, which will create a statewide ecosystem of manufacturing and technology. It will allow industry and academia to come together to advance manufacturing and bring integrated cyber-physical manufacturing systems into practical use.

Dehghani is a nationally prominent research and academic leader who has experience leading complex organizations and building collaborative teams.

In 2013, he joined Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he served as vice provost for research, innovation and entrepreneurship. At Stevens, he led the university’s continuing development of research programs and implementation of the research and scholarship component of the university’s strategic plan. He also was a member of the board of directors for the Research and Development Council of New Jersey and as chair of the Stevens Venture Center Advisory Board.

Dehghani also served at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a research scientist and later as a group leader of the Engineering Systems Design and Fabrication group. Other roles included the division leader of the New Technologies Division and the director of External Relations with Academia. The laboratory is a $1.8 billion, 7,000-employee multidisciplinary applied science and engineering national security laboratory with programs in advanced defense technologies, energy, environment, biosciences and basic sciences.

At Lawrence Livermore, Dehghani helped develop technologies and expand many areas of engineering, including biomedical engineering, nuclear engineering, process systems and the traditional engineering disciplines of mechanical engineering, electronics, fluidics, and multi-scale modeling and simulations.

Dehghani became a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2008. He also served as associate director for engineering, design and fabrication in the Applied Physics Laboratory. In 2011, he became the founding director of the Johns Hopkins University Systems Institute. Through that institute, he established collaborative research and application programs with several organizations, including the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Health and Human Services, with internal divisions at Hopkins, including Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Whiting School of Engineering and the Applied Physics Laboratory.

He is a triple mechanical engineering graduate of Louisiana State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1980, a master’s degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 1987. His academic career began at Ohio University after completing a postdoctoral NSF internship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Dehghani is married to Mina (Saffari) Dehghani, a pharmacist. They have one son, Devon, and two pets (a Brittany Spaniel and an orange tabby cat). A licensed pilot, Dr. Dehghani enjoys flying planes. He also enjoys fly-fishing.

Dr. James Stapleton is President and CEO of Codefi Foundation on Rural Innovation, which he founded in 2014 and built into a leading institution for technology-driven workforce and economic development across rural Missouri. He leads Make Missouri AI-Ready, Codefi's statewide initiative aligned with the federal Make America AI-Ready agenda to prepare Missouri for an AI-driven economy. Its flagship is the Healthcare AI Integration Specialist apprenticeship — among the first registered apprenticeships in the nation for an AI integration occupation, registered with the U.S. Department of Labor in May 2026 — in which workers learn AI inside real healthcare workflows from the first hour of training. Anchored by Saint Francis Healthcare System in partnership with the Missouri Hospital Association, and delivered statewide through the Show Me Network — co-led by Codefi and the efactory at Missouri State University — the program reflects Codefi's industry-led model: training designed with employers and delivered to industry standards.

It upskills incumbent workers to raise their productivity and value in the jobs that exist, while opening pathways for new entrants and dislocated workers to earn an industry-recognized federal credential. Healthcare is the first of several planned industry programs, with potential to extend to manufacturing, agriculture, and higher education. Stapleton holds a Ph.D. in Workforce Education and Development and brings more than two decades of leadership in this field. Across his career he has attracted nearly $40 million in competitive state and federal investment to Missouri to expand access to technology training in rural and underserved communities. He previously founded the Douglas C. Greene Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Southeast Missouri State University, where he served as a tenured Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and earned national recognition for his work across the lower Mississippi Delta region.

Dr. Hal Higdon is Chancellor of the Ozarks Technical Community College System and President of the Ozarks Tech Springfield Campus. In these roles, he oversees the institution's strategic direction and works to strengthen resources and funding for the six-location system.

Hired by the Board of Trustees in July 2006, Dr. Higdon is the longest serving public college president in Missouri. His time at Ozarks Tech has been characterized by the significant growth and expansion of the college’s programs and campuses. In 2022, under his leadership, the college completed construction of the Robert W. Plaster Center for Advanced Manufacturing. At 120,000 square feet and a price tag of $40 million, it is the largest building project in the history of the college.

In 2023, Dr. Higdon became one of the founding board members of the Alliance for Healthcare Education. The Alliance is a partnership between Ozarks Tech, CoxHealth, Missouri State University and Springfield Public Schools to address the need for healthcare professionals.

Before his time at Ozarks Tech, Dr. Higdon served 13 years in administration at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and worked in human resources and workforce training at Alabama’s Faulkner State Community College. He also has several years of experience in the private business sector.

Dr. Higdon is actively involved in community service. He serves as Finance Chair / Treasurer of the Centerstone Board. He is a member of the board for Springfield City Utilities, Missouri Chamber of Commerce, and Phi Theta Kappa. He is a past Chair of the CoxHealth Systems Board of Directors and continues to serve as a board member. He is also a member of the Junior League of Springfield’s Community Advisory Council and Springfield’s Downtown Rotary Club.

Dr. Higdon previously served as chair of the Presidents and Chancellors Council of the Missouri Community College Association (MCCA), representing community college interests in the state legislature and professional and governmental agencies.

Born in Decatur, Alabama, Dr. Higdon holds a degree in business from the University of Alabama and a master's and Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Southern Mississippi.