Juan Diego Velásquez joined the Office of Global Partnerships in 2018 and currently serves as the Assistant Director, Global Partnerships; Director, Latin American Programs; and Director, Colombia Purdue Partnership (CPP). He is a connector of people, a builder of strong relationships, a dedicated facilitator of partnerships, and an innovator of programs that reach across the university and across Colombia. He is passionate about bringing Purdue to Colombia and Colombia to Purdue. Prior to joining the Office of Global Partnerships, Juan was the Managing Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Strategic Planning & Assessment in the College of Engineering where he supported two major faculty-and-staff-led initiatives: the Purdue Systems Collaboratory (PSC), and the Colombia Purdue Initiative (CPI).
Juan was born and raised in Colombia, and joined Purdue University in 1994 as an undergraduate student in Industrial Engineering. He completed his graduate degrees (MS ’03, PhD ’09) at Purdue under the guidance of Dr. Reha Uzsoy, and Dr. Shimon Nof respectively. While at Purdue he was a member, treasurer and president of the Delta Upsilon social fraternity, president of the INFORMS and the Omega Rho local chapters; director of current issues in the Interfraternity Council, and calendar chair of the Barbara Cook chapter of the Mortar Board.
After completing his studies, Juan worked as Assistant Director of TA and Curricular Development at Purdue for 4 years, designing and implementing instructional development programs for Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA), as well as new orientation programs in collaboration with the Teaching Academy, of which he is a member. He assisted the departments with campus-wide service learning initiatives, consulted with faculty and GTAs regarding instruction, evaluation and other curricular issues, and facilitated micro-teaching sessions – all in the spirit of continuous improvement of Purdue’s educational enterprise.
Juan has published several peer-reviewed articles on the application of best-matching protocols in production settings, teaching programs, and collaborated in the publication of Springer’s Handbook of Automation.
He currently is co-advisor to the Colombian Student Association at Purdue and is the academic advisor for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
Lucy joined the Office of Global Partnerships as Administrative Assistant in 2021 when she started working at Purdue for the Arequipa Nexus Project. In March of 2022 she also joined the Colombia Purdue Partnership, where she now works full time for as a Project Assistant. She supports the Colombia Purdue Partnership with visa processing for incoming scholars, as well as the coordination of the first week orientation and all the events scheduled during the stay of the scholars at Purdue. She is also in charge of maintaining the Colombia Purdue Partnership Website and its social media.
Lucy was born and raised in Colombia and moved to the United States in 2017. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad San Buenaventura in Medellin, and a Master's of Science in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked for the Telecommunications department at Empresas Publicas de Medellin, that became a new company named UNE which later was bought by TIGO, for 23 years in different positions. After moving to the US, she started working as a teacher at the Montessori School of Greater Lafayette.
She really enjoys working at Purdue, but especially for the Colombia Purdue Partnership, because it keeps her connected to her roots.