Jenna Rickus Named Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning

To:                    Executive Vice Presidents, Chancellors, Vice Presidents, Vice Chancellors, Vice Provosts, Deans, Directors and Heads of Schools, Divisions, Departments and Offices

 

From:              Jay Akridge, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity

 

Date:               August 22, 2017

 

Subject:         Jenna Rickus Named Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning

 

 

Jenna Rickus, professor and associate department head of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, has been named associate vice provost for teaching and learning, effective August 14.

 

In this new role, she will provide leadership to the campus in undergraduate education with specific oversight of undergraduate advising, career opportunities, student success programs and exploratory studies.  She also will be responsible for some areas of governance including academic appeals.  Jenna will report directly to Frank Dooley, senior vice provost.  Beginning in May 2017, he was also tasked to work closely with all aspects involved in Purdue University’s acquisition of Kaplan University.

 

Professor Rickus is a biological engineer with expertise in biofunctional materials and biosensors.  With funding from NIH, NSF, USDA, NASA, the Army Research Office and DARPA, her research lab has developed new technologies to treat, understand and detect brain cancer, diabetes and foodborne illness.  She is an alumna of Purdue (BS ABE ’95, BS BCHM ’95) and has spent time in industry as an engineer before receiving her PhD in neuroscience and neuroengineering at UCLA.

 

During her 14 years as a faculty member at Purdue, she has invested significantly in building, growing and strengthening academic programs, classroom teaching and transformational experiences for students. She founded the Purdue international genetically engineered machine (iGEM) undergraduate research team and is a member of the Howard Hughes Science Education Alliance bringing authentic research into the classroom.

 

An award winning professor, Dr. Rickus was named a University Faculty Scholar in 2016.  She is currently a Fellow of ELATE at Drexel (Executive Leadership on Academic Technology and Engineering), a program designed to advance senior women faculty in STEM into effective institutional leadership roles within their universities.