Meet the IE Team

Dr. Jorge Pérez joined the UT System in 2018 after twenty years in Georgia, where he was vice provost for institutional effectiveness, SACSCOC accreditation liaison, and professor of information systems at Kennesaw State University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English, an MBA, and a Ph.D. in information systems from Florida State University. Digital literacy is the focus of his current research.

The recipient of a prestigious American Council on Education (ACE) Fellowship, Jorge spent the 2013 academic year in Boston analyzing the strategic plans of constituents of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. He serves on the Board of Governors of the Informing Science Institute and the Advisory Board of the Atlanta Council on International Relations; he has served on the boards of the Latin American Association and the Atlanta Electronic Commerce Forum. Jorge has industry experience as a systems analyst, web developer, and consultant. He was inducted into the PhD Project Hall of Fame in 2019.

Jorge is an Ironman Lake Placid finisher who teaches indoor cycling classes and enjoys hiking with his dog, Murphy.

Dr. Brian Hester is the Director of Institutional Research & Planning at the University of Tennessee System and has been with the department since 2010. He has served in various committees and service roles with UT over this time period. Brian has also been an active member of the Tennessee Association for Institutional Research for the past eight years – serving in leadership roles as secretary from 2016 through 2017 and most recently as vice president in 2018 and president in 2019.

Born and raised in Knoxville, Brian is a graduate of Bearden High School and a three-time graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he earned a bachelor’s in English, a Master’s of Business Administration, and a PhD in Higher Education Administration. Before joining the UT System, Brian worked in the private sector in business management. He currently serves as a board member of St. George Greek Orthodox Church and has served as its treasurer numerous times over the past fifteen years.

Brian, his wife Alice, son Nicholas and daughter Sophia live in Knoxville, and they spend most of their free-time together – playing sports, gardening, and enjoying the many parks and nature areas around Knoxville and East Tennessee.

Davery is the Assessment Coordinator for the Institutional Effectiveness team. He works to develop, administer, score, and analyze assessments for the UT System including climate surveys and process improvements. He also works as part of the Institutional Research team developing reports and visualizations with the data supplied by the UT campuses. Davery helps to maintain and improve the Academic Program Inventory, a record of all active and inactive programs offered at the University of Tennessee. He has an associate degree in Information Technology (Southwest TN Community College), a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology (East TN State University), and a master’s degree in Computer Science (Austin Peay State University). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Evaluation, Statistics, & Measurement at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Taylor started her journey at the University of Tennessee as an undergraduate student studying Business Analytics and Marketing. After being an intern with Institutional Research during school, Taylor began working as a Research Associate in Fall of 2019. She mostly works on improving data quality with student data and reporting to THEC. Taylor lives in Knoxville where she loves to explore the outdoors and cheer on the Volunteers.

Griffin is a Tennessee native who is pursuing his undergraduate degree in Business Analytics with a minor in technical communication at the University of Tennessee. Currently, he interns with the Institutional Effectiveness’s Institutional Research team where he works on creating graphics, cleaning data, and writing reports.

Michael Richards is a native Tennessean and a research associate for the Institutional Effectiveness team. His work includes providing data visualizations for ad hoc projects along with UT Transparency and Impact. Michael also works alongside the SMART Policy Network to help reduce opioid addiction in Tennessee by providing legislators and policymakers with well-designed and created materials that expose the effects that opioid addiction has on Tennessee. He has a bachelor’s degree in Geography which he earned from the University of Tennessee – Knoxville in 2020.

Dr. Jay Eckles is a native Tennessean who has been with UT since 2015. He leads the team responsible for the collection, organization, and distribution of data from across the UT system for the purposes of executive decision support, analytics, and reporting. While the majority of his experience is in higher education, he also has worked in the finance and retail industries. He has degrees in higher education, information science, computer science, and business from the University of Memphis, Penn State, and Rhodes College. A father to four children, Jay has been married to Morgan Eckles for over 20 years; they make their home in Farragut, TN.

Originally from Ohio, Jeremy joined the Navy right after high school to travel the world. While serving, he found his love for technology and started training himself in computers. Obtaining his A+ and Net+ certifications, in 2008 he left Active duty and moved to Tennessee with his wife and son and joined the Navy Active Ready Reserves, which he is currently serving. Wanting to start his career, he delved into the field as a Systems Administrator while working in the nuclear field in Oak Ridge. Since then he obtained his certification as a SQL Database Administrator and in 2014 started working for The University of Tennessee as a SQL DBA and System Administrator with UTSA ITS. Wanting to specialize, development interested him and hired into the BI group, now part of Institutional Effectiveness, to further his career. His current role is a Software Developer utilizing ETL and Data Engineering techniques while pursuing his B.S. in Business Management for his future goal of moving into a directorship role at UT.

Since 2017, Tyler Brown has been a driven member of the Business Intelligence team, now a part of Institutional Effectiveness. You may recognize his contributions to projects such as UT Presence infographics, Transparent UT dashboards, and the COVID-19 situation dashboard. As a Data Modeler, Tyler strives to engineer data models that foster sound decision making and continuous improvement. Tyler completed his bachelor’s degree at Austin Peay State University in 2019 in Computer Science and Information Technology while working for UT. He lives with his partner and two dogs in Kingston, TN.

Denise is a native New Yorker who has been with UT since 2004. Starting out in Knoxville Budget & Finance, she joined the Business Warehouse team to simplify data access and business processes. She often describes her position, as “I’m here to make your job easier”. She has a master’s degree in Accounting Information Systems and an undergraduate degree in education. In addition, she teaches classes for SAP reporting and Data Warehouse. As a former airline employee, she loves to travel. She resides in the outskirts of Maryville with her husband, great dane rescue and cats.

Rob is a native Tennessean and lifelong fan of University of Tennessee athletics, as encouraged by his father. His role is to work with clients to get clean data loaded into the UT system data warehouse and to create data models and reports using that data. He has worked for the state of Tennessee in higher education for over a decade and holds a B.S. (East Tennessee State) and M.S. (Georgia Tech) in computer science. He currently resides in Knoxville with his wife and son.

Mozhgan is a software developer for the Business Intelligence within the Institutional Effectiveness team. She designs, develops, enhances, and tests/troubleshoots data models using the SAP NetWeaver BW software. Mozhgan provides the Historical Data (2001-current) via the BW data models (FI, Payroll, and HR) for the UT System reporting, analytics, and informed decision making. She performs the ETL for the SAP BW data models as well as System Upgrade tests for BW Clients (Dev, QA, Prod) and IRIS Portal Systems. Her degrees include: A.A.S. in Computer Science, (Pellissippi State), B.M. in Piano, and M.M. in Music Composition (University of Tennessee, Knoxville). Mozhgan loves writing music and photography.

Nathan has been with the University of Tennessee since 2011. He started as a programmer for the TERA project, became the IT Service Owner of Research, and now works in the Business Intelligence part of the Institutional Effectiveness team. He designed, built, and maintains the SIS application that enables campuses to transfer student data to the System. He plays an active role in every aspect of the Business Intelligence team. His duties include building ETL packages, advising on infrastructure development and other projects, assisting AASS with special projects like UT Promise, and filling in as Director of the group when needed. He is currently pursuing a degree in Data Management and Data Analytics.

Kaitlin I. Singer is the Director of Strategic Planning & Policy for the University of Tennessee System. She partners with leaders to enhance and further University of Tennessee’s strategic goals by aiding in the development and assessment of systemwide initiatives and policies in support of the UT Strategic Plan. Dr. Singer also serves on the Steering Committee of the Substance Misuse and Addiction Resource for Tennessee (SMART) Policy Network. She holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as well as, a M.S. and B.S. in Geology from North Carolina State University.