Modeling and simulation looks like fun, but it's serious stuff

Saikou Diallo understands that modeling and simulation can look pretty cool to the outside world - the 3-D images, the virtual reality, the gizmos that make it come together.

Except he's not a fan of presenting it that way.

"To me, it's trivializing it," he said. "It's not fair to the discipline itself. Visualization is one of the components, but it is about engineering. It's applying science. It's solving problems. In the case of homeland security and military, it is saving lives."

If Diallo sounds like a serious student, that's exactly what he is.

The native of Guinea, raised in Russia, now a U.S. citizen, Diallo is a doctoral candidate for a degree in modeling and simulation, a rarity in the academic world.

The Batten College has one of the few post-graduate degree programs in the country for modeling and simulation, and Diallo is working on his dissertation around his day gig as a senior project scientist at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, or VMASC.