Easy as PI: LSU-Built Professor Rating App Adds New Features
September 22, 2025
The Professor Index app, or PI, launched on Pi Day in March last year, was built by an LSU researcher as a secure, fair, and ad-free alternative to Rate My Professors to help students compare courses and provide feedback.
Inventor of the PI app, Nash Mahmoud (right), celebrated with some of the app’s highest reviewed LSU professors on Friday evening at the Silicon Bayou Gala. From left to right: Felipe Fronchetti, James Ghawaly, and Golden Richard, all in computer science. During the evening, Mahmoud received the Excellence in Teaching Award while Ghawaly was recognized with the Rising Faculty Award. Richard received the national Order of Thor Medal, awarded by the Military Cyber Professionals Association for exceptional contributions and excellence within the American military cyber community.
While Rate My Professors included a “hotness” rating until 2018—the famous or infamous chili pepper—PI was engineered to focus on academics and remove bias. It has also been rolling out rubber ducks, both physical and virtual, as prizes and badges for leaving reviews and becoming a trusted reviewer, endorsed by other students.
In a year and a half, PI has grown to reach 20 universities, including LSU, Tulane University, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette as well as Georgia Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of South Florida. The app has more than 30,000 downloads and 5,000 reviews.
The PI app interface.
New this year are two features: An ambassador program where student first-adopters can earn a stipend by introducing PI to their campus, and an ability for students and professors to request reviews for specific professors and classes.
“This new feature gives professors the ability to get real-time feedback and hear from their students in the middle of the semester when they still have time to adjust course,” said Nash Mahmoud, associate professor of computer science and engineering and inventor of PI.
The app continues to offer AI summaries that elevate major themes and help overcome outlier reviews that could skew a student’s impression of a professor or class.
“Something that often goes unrewarded at universities is really good teaching by truly excellent professors and instructors,” Mahmoud said. “We talk about research grants and publications and all these top metrics we’re working so hard to reach, but what about our service to our students? Part of the reason I wanted to create the PI app was to recognize professors who truly care about their students, devoting their lives to their students and to their lifelong success.”
Over time, PI is building a comprehensive overview of professors, courses, and universities nationwide, creating insights to support research, institutional analysis, and collaboration.
Celebrating Excellence in Teaching
At LSU, the Top 10 professors who receive an A from their students (ranked 4.7 and above) and have at least 20 reviews across at least two classes and two semesters (Bayesian weighted average) are:
- Felipe Fronchetti, Computer Science (assistant professor)
- Daniel Donze, Computer Science (instructor)
- Vinicio Rios Arrieta, Math (instructor)
- Darius Spieth, Art & Design (professor)
- Kaylee Deynzer, Horticulture (instructor)
- James Ghawaly, Computer Science (assistant professor)
- Colin Turley, Physics & Astronomy (instructor)
- Dee Jacobsen, Kinesiology (professor, professional practice)
- Golden Richard, Computer Science (professor)
- Manal Abdelwahab, Electrical and Computer Engineering (instructor)
Many of the PI app’s highest reviewed LSU professors are instructors. They include Daniel Donze, who himself is a graduate of LSU’s cybersecurity program and a former CyberCorps Scholarship for Service recipient. Donze teaches three classes this semester in the Division of Computer Science & Engineering: Object Oriented Design (115 students), Operating Systems (192 students), and the highly technical Software Vulnerabilities and Exploitation (30 students), serving a total of 337 students.
– Photo by Elsa Hahne
The predominance of computer science professors on the Top 10 list is partly due to the PI app being launched from the LSU Division of Computer Science & Engineering—those professors have had the most time to accumulate reviews. Also, Mahmoud himself should actually top the list—but excluded himself for reasons of potential perceived bias.
Next Step
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