WHO WE ARE

Beverly Davenport Sypher, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Chair, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence

In 2008, Beverly Davenport Sypher was named the first chair of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. She is also Purdue's Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, a position that allows her to work with academic leadership development. Davenport Sypher serves as Purdue's liaison for the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Academic Leadership Program and is the institutional representative to Indiana's Women in Higher Education Council. In addition, she is a professor in the Department of Communication, an award-winning teacher and an author of three books on the contemporary professional world.

Katie Pope, Managing Director, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence

Katie Pope was named the first managing director for the Butler Center in 2010. She came to Purdue in 2006 to take the role of director of the Women’s Resource Office (WRO). Katie began working with the Butler Center in 2008, helping to launch the Center’s first campus event. In 2010, she coordinated the merger of the WRO with the Butler Center, to better serve Purdue through streamlined programming. She is responsible for the oversight of all Butler Center activities and programming, including the annual Conference for Pre-Tenure Women at Purdue and the Distinguished Women Scholars recognition event. Her professional background includes non-profit executive leadership, fundraising and resource development, and program management.

Ellen Ernst Kossek, Research Director, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence and Basil S.Turner Distinguished Professor of Management at Purdue University's Krannert School of Management

Ellen Ernst Kossek was named as the Inaugural Research Director of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence in January 2013. At the same time, she was appointed theBasil S. Turner Distinguished Professor of Management at Purdue University's Krannert School of Management. Dr. Kossek is also the Associate Director of the Center for Work-Family Stress, Safety, and Health (CWFSSH) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The CWFSSH is part of the Work, Family and Health Network, an interdisciplinary national research team collaborating to design and implement field studies that have the goal of reducing work-family conflict as a pathway to enhance employee and family health and organizational effectiveness. Prior to joining Purdue, Dr. Kossek was a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. See Dr. Kossek’s full bio on our Research page.

Lisa Burke, Project Manager and Research Associate, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence

Lisa Burke joined the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence in January 2013 as a Project Manager and Research Associate. Prior to this, she held a similar position with the Work, Family and Health Network, an interdisciplinary national research team collaborating to implement field studies that have the goal of reducing work-family conflict as a pathway to enhance employee and family health and organizational effectiveness. Lisa also has more than ten years of experience as a Consultant and Project Manager with WFD Consulting (formerly Work/Family Directions, where she was involved in projects supporting the advancement of women, the successful implementation of flexible work programs, and the improvement in the availability and quality of dependent care programs.

Rebecca Thompson, Data Analyst and Research Associate, Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence

Rebecca Thompson is a Research Associate and Data Analyst at the Center for Work-Family Stress, Safety, and Health and the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence at Purdue University. She has a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Texas A&M University and is currently a doctoral candidate completing her PhD at the same institution. Her research interests are in the areas of flexible work arrangements and work-life balance, personality and individual differences, and facets of mentoring. She has worked on research projects for groups including Texas A&M’s NSF funded ADVANCE-IT grant. She is an active member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of Management.

Ileana Cortes Santiago, Graduate Assistant

Tammy Hoffman, Administrative Assistant