Appointments, honors and activities

• Faculty and staff honors:

- Purdue University has been honored by Sociedad Amigos de Colombia (SADCO) for its work with the Colombia-Purdue Institute. The institute began in 2010 with an agreement that initiated a series of partnerships between Purdue and institutions in Colombia, including universities, companies, government ministries and non-governmental organizations. Collectively, the partnerships focus on faculty and student mobility, joint educational initiatives such as service learning, collaborative research aimed at addressing issues of national interest to Colombia and the United States, and commercialization programs that could open new business opportunities for Colombia and the United States. SADCO, sponsored by USA Funds, Cummins, Lumina Foundation and Key Bank, is a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to Hispanic students in Indiana. It has given Purdue the 2014 Bertha Torres Service Award in recognition of its efforts with the Colombia-Purdue Institute. Bertha Torres was the founder of SADCO. More information on the Colombia-Purdue Institute can be found at https://engineering.purdue.edu/CPIASR. More information on SADCO can be found at www.sadco.org.

• Student honors:

- Five graduate students in the Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation won research awards at the recent Association of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering Annual Conference in St. Louis. The students took the top three places in the graduate student research competition. Award winners were: first place, Kurt Homan, "Production Capacity Process Improvement in a High Mix Low Volume Company;" second place, Helen Nunez, "Lean and Supply Chain Management in the Construction Industry;" fourth place, Sofia Zhao, "Integrate Product Drawing with Customer Orders in Product Configurator." Jeremy Johns and Scott Abney placed second in the white paper competition with their submission titled "A Framework for Applying Sustainability Principles through Lean Six Sigma." ATMAE members are college and university educators, administrators, students, and industry professionals in the United States and overseas. ATMAE sets standards for academic program accreditation, personal certification, and professional development for educators and industry professionals involved in integrating technology, leadership, and design.

- A team from Purdue won the Best Overall Award in the IAM3D Challenge, a new ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) competition. In the competition, students re-engineer existing products or create new designs that minimize energy consumption or improve energy efficiency. The Purdue team, working in collaboration with Brigham Young University, developed a 12-pound unmanned air vehicle to help farmers reliably monitor the condition of their crops over large areas. Students on the team were Eli Cohen and Jean Ruggiero of Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Aaron Inouye of Brigham Young. Advisers were John Sullivan, Purdue professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and Steven Gorrell of Brigham Young. More information on the competition can be found at https://www.asme.org/about-asme/news/asme-news/students-vie-top-prizes-iam3d-old-guard-student