Appointments, honors and activities

• Notables:

 - Matthew Pistilli, research scientist, and James Willis, III, education assessment specialist, both in the Office of Institutional Research, Assessment and Effectiveness, co-hosted the fourth International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, March 24-28 in Indianapolis. Farshid Marbouti and Xin Chen, doctoral students in the School of Engineering Education, were accepted into the conference's nine-student Doctoral Consortium. Chen also received the best poster presentation award at the conference for her research, "A Social Media Analytics Framework for Understanding Students' Learning Experiences." Pistilli also delivered a paper, with two co-authors, titled "An Exercise in Institutional Reflection: The Learning Analytics Readiness Instrument," and Marbouti delivered a poster titled "Identifying At-Risk students in a First-Year Engineering Course." Taeho Yu, a doctoral student in the College of Education, also co-presented a poster titled "Educational Technology Approach toward Learning Analytics: Relationship between Student Online Behavior and Learning Performance in Higher Education." 

- Energy sustainability and climate change are the focus of a new book published by Purdue University Press in collaboration with the Global Policy Research Institute (GPRI). The book, "Understanding the Global Energy Crisis," provides insights into the challenges of our time and is intended to be a source of information for advanced-level students and policymakers. It represents a trans-Atlantic collaboration between Purdue and the Dublin Institute of Technology with authors from both institutions. Richard Simmons, executive director of Purdue's Air Transport Institute for Environmental Sustainability, is co-editor. The book will be available in print and commercial e-book formats, and is free online at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/29/). Open access availability has been made possible thanks to pledges of support from over 300 academic libraries from 24 countries, working through the Knowledge Unlatched consortium. The book is one of 28 volumes selected for the pilot collection. Two of these are Purdue-published books. 

• Student honors:

- Emily Erickson, Haefa Mansour, Sean McDowell and Nicholas Pogranichniy have received Barry Goldwater Scholarships. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 toward tuition, fees, room and board. Congress established it in 1986 to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research careers. Students studying in the science, engineering and mathematics fields are eligible. Erickson is a junior from Clark Hills, Ind., who majors in biochemistry. Mansour is a junior from Mentor, Ohio, who majors in chemical engineering. McDowell is from Stevensville, Mich., and majors in biomedical engineering. Pogranichniy is a sophomore from West Lafayette, Ind., who majors in biochemistry.