Annual Engagement Awards

Awarded to a full professor whose work has led to a strong record in the scholarship of engagement.

2023

Paul Ebner, Professor, Department of Animal Sciences – Ebner’s recent work in Columbia involved efforts to improve production and consumption of nutrient-rich foods. The team’s research integrates microbiology, behavior and gender theory, and communities in an effort to identify and introduce practices that are effective and adoptable by producers and vendors in Cambodia’s informal vegetable markets. Ebner is conducting a five-year project which aims to improve sanitary measures in Dominican Republic food production, and, in doing so, improve both trade capacity in the Dominican Republic and the safety of domestically consumed foods. Ebner’s international work to improve the world’s food supply has included partnerships in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Romania, and Egypt.

Karen J. Foli, Professor, School of Nursing – Over the past 20 years, Foli has impacted the lives of nontraditional families (i.e., adoptive, kinship, and foster families) by filling the gaps in practicing nurses’ and adoption community members’ understanding of the challenges the families face. She has curated scholarships and partnered with adoption organizations so that professionals can provide trauma-informed, adoption-competent services to adoptive, kinship, and foster families, and particularly in the area of parental post-adoption depression. Dr. Foli’s book, Nursing Care of Adoption and Kinship Families: A Clinical Guide for Advanced Practice Nurses (2017) was the first and only book specifically for nurses in caring for this group of families.

2021

Bo Beaulieu, Professor Emeritus, College of Agriculture – Dr. Beaulieu’s engagement and extension track record are extensive. Of particular note is a program he developed and implemented when he was director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development and community development program leader. This program is called the Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI). The HCI project was first launched in 2015 with support from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. With the leadership provided by the Purdue Center for Regional Development, the Purdue Extension Community Development Program, and the Ball State University’s Indiana Communities Institute, the program engaged a total of 19 communities and counties over the course of a five-year period.

2020

Maria Marshall, Professor, College of Agriculture – Dr. Marshall’s work exemplifies the scholarship of engagement. Dr. Marshall has a nationally and internationally recognized integrated extension, research, and teaching program that is focused on small and family business development. Small businesses are job creators, represent the vast majority of all firms and account for 60-80% of net new jobs. It is in the best interest of the economy that small businesses succeed.   

Sulma Mohammed, Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine – Dr. Mohammed worked on the early detection of breast cancer in rural Sudan and conducted a study that used young woman volunteers from local villages to screen other women in their village for breast abnormalities. She recruited 35 local female volunteers from 29 villages and taught them about breast cancer and the need to detect it early. Additionally, she trained girls and women in breast self-examination and in determining whether breasts appear to be normal or abnormal. In total, 10,309 women were screened for breast abnormalities in those 29 villages. The awareness campaigns and training Dr. Mohammed did in rural areas in Sudan have resulted in a tremendous impact on the entire region.

2019

Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Professor, College of Health & Human Sciences – Shelley leads the Star Behavioral Health Providers (SBHP), a training and referral system aimed at improving community mental health care for military members, veterans, and their families. Created by the Military Family Research Institute, and in partnership with the Indiana National Guard and the Center for Deployment Psychology, the SBHP has focuses in several areas. The deployments of over 2 million members of the U.S. military since 2001 have generated as many as 400,000 cases of mental health problems. As a result, the mental health care needs for these men and women exceed the capacity of the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, especially for family members. The SBHP works to alleviate this load. Additionally, the SBHP performs work on advances in evidence-based treatments.

2018

Timothy J. Gibb, Professor, Insect Biology, College of Education – Dr. Gibb has a successful and long track record in the practice and scholarship of engagement.  His ability to partner and collaborate with community stakeholders as well as professional peers has led to significant and sustainable impacts, both locally and nationally.  

2017

Carla C. Johnson, Professor of Science Education – Dr. Johnson is a respected scholar and leader in the realm of K-12 STEM education. The body of her work has been global in scope and local in impact over the trajectory of her career. She is currently working with over 30 school corporations in the state of Indiana on the process of transforming to STEM focused learning.

2016

Darcy Bullock, Professor of Civil Engineering – Dr. Bullock works closely with engineers at the local, state, and national levels to identify critical research problems and to produce solutions. His work demonstrates a successful history of real-world implementation. His community partner is the Indiana Department of Transportation.

2015

Bill Oakes, Professor of Engineering – Dr. Oakes has made an enormous impact through his engagement efforts to the university, both nationally and internationally. He has dedicated his career to the scholarship, implementation, and dissemination of community engagement. He has been internationally recognized for his work and scholarship integrating community-engaged learning with engineering education. He has continued to grow the EPICS Program and its impact at Purdue, within the local community, nationally, and internationally.  He has integrated engagement into his teaching, his service, and his research.

2014

Allan Gray, Professor of Agricultural Economics – Dr. Gray serves as director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the MS-MBA in Food and Agribusiness Management. He works on developing and delivering educational materials to help managers of agribusiness firms develop a strategic focus for managing their businesses, ultimately contributing to a food supply chain that provides safe and abundant food – feed and fiber that is affordable for all.

2013

Yuehwern Yih, Professor of Industrial Engineering – Dr. Yih has worked with Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) to develop a system for distributing food to HIV patients in Kenya. Yih and some of her graduate students developed the Nutritional Information System (NIS), the first of its kind, in 2006. NIS has delivery scheduling and inventory tracking capabilities. It also tracks patient food prescriptions and connects the information with medical records so physicians and researchers can study the impact of nutrition on patient health. It can also inform donors regarding the health outcomes and improvements resulting from their gifts. NIS provides support to more than 35,000 people. Although it was developed specifically for AMPATH, the system can be applied in other programs with similar missions.

Awarded to an assistant or associate professor with an outstanding record of early achievement in, and strong indication of future contribution to, the scholarship of engagement.

2023

Dieudonné Baributsa, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology – Baributsa leads an international extension and engagement program delivering innovative postharvest solutions to smallholder farmers around the world. His program aims to serve 500 million smallholder farmers. The programs promote pest management innovations to reduce grain handling and storage losses. Farmers lose substantial quantities of grain to insect pests due to ineffective storage methods and limited access to extension services. Baributsa has been instrumental in scaling a cost-effective hermetic technology – the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bag – that eliminates storage pests without the use of insecticides and mitigates development of carcinogenic aflatoxins. PICS bags allow rural communities to improve household food security and increase their income. As a result, an estimated 10 million farmers in 70,000 villages representing 20 million households have been impacted, with benefits reaching 75 to 100 million people.

Wanju Huang, Clinical Assistant Professor, College of Education – Huang is an action research practitioner, who utilizes the spiral model – plan, apply, observe, and reflect – to evaluate and improve instruction. Since Spring 2020, Huang has led the analysis of data related to student use of the (Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness) CATME-based self-and-peer-assessment tool in order to identify learning gaps and develop instructional interventions that enhance students’ professional skill development, team performance, and better prepare them for working in industry. During the pandemic, she was recruited by the University of Louisville School of Nursing to consult with faculty members and assist in redesigning courses for online learning.

2022

Marian Liu, Assistant Professor, College of Health and Human Sciences – Dr. Liu conducts applied research around elder justice issues, covering topics on elder abuse, neglect/self-neglect, exploitation, and fraud/scam. She works with Adult Protective Services at local, state, and national levels to identify victim-abuser characteristics, measure services outcomes, and advocate for workforce training. She is also the co-chair of the National Adult Protective Services Association’s Research to Practice Interest Group. Prior to joining Purdue University, Dr. Liu was an Assistant Professor at University of California, San Francisco.

Darcy Telenko, Assistant Professor, College of Agriculture – Dr. Telenko’s focus is in researching the biology and management of soil-borne and foliar pathogens of agronomic crops. She spent four years as an Extension Vegetable Specialist for the Cornell Vegetable Program at Cornell University in New York. Her responsibilities in that position were fresh market vegetable production, disease and weed management, soil health, and climate change resiliency. Darcy is a native of western New York and received her B.S. in Biological Sciences at Cornell University, M.S. in Plant and Soil Science at Southern Illinois University, and Ph.D. in Plant Pathology and Crop Sciences at North Carolina State University. Prior to Cornell, Darcy’s post-doctoral research included studies in weed management of turf grass and agronomic crops at the University of Florida and disease management of agronomic crops at Virginia Tech.

2021

Laura Bofferding, Associate Professor, College of Education – Dr. Bofferding’s scholarship of engagement focuses both directly and indirectly on increasing connections among her department, local schools, and families. Collectively, these endeavors build directly on the Purdue College of Education strategic goal to “build P-12 partnerships that reflect a shared, collaborative vision and commitment to excellence in teaching and learning” so that “the College of Education will be a national model of engagement that benefits all partners, produces high-quality scholarship, and transforms society.” Since joining the Purdue faculty in 2011, Dr. Bofferding has worked with undergraduates taking the elementary mathematics methods course and partnered with elementary schools to offer family math and science nights.

Darrin Karcher, Associate Professor, College of Agriculture – Dr. Darrin Karcher has met the poultry industries needs through his integrated Extension-Research program for over a decade. He has established himself as a laying hen expert on a national level and his focus on laying hen well-being and housing systems, coupled with food safety and quality, is unique among his peers. He is recognized as the premier scientist for retailers and producers with respect to the table egg (laying hen) industry. Prior to 2016, the egg industry struggled with defining “cage-free”. In response, Dr. Karcher co-facilitated a national meeting to establish such a definition, bringing together wide-ranging stakeholders that included UEP, USDA-AMS, American Humane Association, Humane Farm Animal Care, Walmart, and Costco, among others. The outcome was a definition that was mutually agreeable to all parties in attendance and the adoption of the cage free definition in May 2017. As a result, USDA-AMS has developed a ‘cage-free’ specific egg grade shield that can be found on shell eggs purchased at grocery stores by consumers.

2020

Jennifer Bay, Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts – For the past ten years, Dr. Bay and her students have contributed to the region’s fight against food insecurity, touching the lives of over 12,000 food pantry clients, 1,300 volunteers, and 175 member agencies at Food Finders Food Bank, a regional food bank that serves Tippecanoe and its fifteen surrounding counties. In 2010, Professor Bay established a reciprocal community partnership with Food Finders, in which Professor Bay and her students work to perform research with clients and agencies, write reports, publish media, and produce other supplementary training materials that help Food Finders complete their work. 

2019

Kathryn Cramer Brownell, Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts – Dr. Brownell’s commitment to engagement in her scholarship and teaching motivated her to create an innovative and exciting partnership with the Washington Post. On June 26th, 2017, Brownell launched Made by History, a new online section of the Post, with two other historians, Brian Rosenwald (University of Pennsylvania) and Nicole Hemmer (University of Virginia). Made By History brings high-quality humanities research to inform policymaking and public discussion, and to date, has attracted more than 8 million unique viewers and 10 million page views. As a result, Made By History has become recognized as the most respected and prominent place for the public dissemination of political history in the historical profession.

2018

Paul Ebner, Associate Professor of Animal Science – As part of the USAID funded program focused on higher education development, Ebner and his colleagues have worked with Herat University in Afghanistan to develop a new department of food technology. This process involved capacity building of faculty and administration, curriculum development, and direct interaction with Afghan undergraduate students through teaching, research, and extension.

2017

Stacey L. Connaughton, Associate Professor of Brian Lamb School of Communication and Director of Purdue Peace Project (PPP) – In leading PPP, Dr. Connaughton has developed a program of engaged scholarship that makes her an outstanding candidate for this award. Through work on all of their projects, PPP has developed a social-scientific, evidence-based approach to monitoring and evaluating locally-driven political violence prevention projects.

2016

Tamara Moore, Associate Professor of Engineering Education – Dr. Moore is an internationally recognized scholar in the area of STEM integration in the K-12 classroom. She has made a tremendous impact on schools, teachers, and students around the world through her scholarship of engagement work. Her community partner is Saint Paul Public Schools.

2015

Robert X. Browning, Professor Communication and Political Science – In 1986, a group of Purdue professors gathered in the Purdue Union with C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb to discuss how C-SPAN programming could be used for teaching and research. Out of that group, Dr. Browning emerged to take the lead and create the C-SPAN Archives on the Purdue campus.  Now almost 30 years later, that archive is the world’s largest indexed and readily accessible video collection of the debates of our democracy. These efforts have received national recognition through a Peabody Award in 2010 and daily use of the 210,000 hours of indexed, free, online content through the C-SPAN Video Library.

2014

Nicole Olynk Widmar, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics – Dr. Widmar’s research and Purdue Extension activities are focused primarily on farm business management and production economics. She provides support to farmers as they make business decisions in an ever-changing market environment and contend with factors like environmental concerns and public perceptions of agricultural practices.

2013

James Elicker, Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Studies – Dr. Elicker has worked to enhance the quality of early childhood education at Purdue and throughout the state, including through his multi-year evaluation of Paths to Quality, which establishes a metric that enables parents to assess the quality of programs as they enroll their children. He was instrumental in formulating Indiana’s early learning standards, the Foundations to Indiana Academic Standards for Children Birth to Five, and he founded and co-directed the Infant-Toddler Specialists of Indiana, a statewide professional development network for persons working with children under age 3.

Luciana de Oliveira, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction – Dr. de Oliveira focuses on issues relating to English language learners (ELL), especially in preparing teachers. She has worked with a number of communities and partners in developing ELL programs. One of the most notable is her work with the Frankfort, Indiana school system. From 2007 to 2009, she served as a professional development specialist for the Frankfort schools, where ELL students account for 60 percent of enrollment, the fourth highest in the state. Before her arrival, less than 10 percent of the district’s teachers had received services focused on ELL. Under her direction, that proportion increased to more than 60 percent. She also worked with the Wabash Valley Education Center to provide professional development for in-service teachers across the state.

Awarded to a staff member who has collaborated in sustained synergistic partnerships within his or her community; embodies the scholarship of engagement, not only to strengthen Purdue University, but also community partners; continually gives back, through community service, in order to improve the lives of others.

2023

David Sederberg, Outreach Coordinator, Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy – Sederberg has led the STEM outreach efforts of the Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy for more than a decade. His mission is to create and enhance science enrichment opportunities for K-12 students and their teachers in central Indiana and beyond. Sederberg forges partnerships with local and remote K-12 schools and provides students and teachers with science curriculum and activities, educational materials and a supportive network to excel STEM teaching and learning. He has also initiated programs like Science on the Road, Sidewalk Science, NanoDays, Saturday Morning Astrophysics at Purdue (SMAP), Physics Inside Out (PIO), summer workshops for middle and high school teachers, and the Science Express loan program for high school STEM teachers – programs that have reached thousands of students and teachers.

2021

Ed Wiercioch, Early Clinical Practice Coordinator, College of Education – From his colleague at Big Brothers Big Sisters: “During Ed’s 32-year involvement in Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Lafayette, he has served as an exemplary Big Brother to many at-risk boys in our mentoring programs. He has proven to be consistent, reliable, caring, and considerate. As a result, Ed has been able to build a trusting friendship with his current Little Brother of seven years, Jaxson.  Ed has positively impacted Jaxson’s life in a tremendous way. Thanks to Ed’s coaching, positive example, and encouragement, Jaxson can now hold a conversation, use manners, and be respectful when interacting with adults. Our agency has a saying: ‘A candle loses nothing of its flame by lighting that of another.’ Ed is a candle and has sparked his Little Brother to work toward his full potential.”

2020

Mary Gardner, Program Coordinator, Senior Programs – Mary Gardner creates mutually beneficial community partnerships with the City of West Lafayette and numerous other community stakeholders to provide senior programs. Her focus is on developing those collaborations that promote lifelong learning as a vital part in any community’s quality of life. 

Steven Smith, EAPS Outreach Coordinator, College of Science – Steven Smith has worked tirelessly as the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences department outreach coordinator, supporting K-12 science education. Steven embodies the scholarship of engagement, not only to strengthen Purdue University, but also the community.

2018

Tamara Ogle, Regional Educator, Purdue Extension Community Development – For the past eight years, Tamara has served as an educator for Purdue Extensions and has played a leadership role in the development and implementation of two of the largest signature programs in the area of Community Development. Her work with On Local Government (OLG) and the Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI) has equipped leaders around the state with the skills, knowledge, and resources to make more informed decisions regarding the future of their communities.

2017

Roy Ballard, Purdue Extension Educator, Agriculture & Natural Resources, Hancock County – Ballard has distinguished himself in Indiana Agriculture and has educated residents of rural Indiana through his consistent and dedicated efforts to inform citizens of his county and throughout the state about alternative agricultural opportunities and local marketing of foods to make those alternatives sustainable and impactful for the community.

Bill Bayley, Director of Science Express, K-12 Chemistry Outreach – Bayley excels in all of the areas that this award recognizes including collaboration in sustained synergistic partnerships within his community to strengthen Purdue and its community partners and continually giving back through community service in order to improve the lives of others.

2016

Dorothy A. Reed, Assistant Dean for Engagement, College of Education – Reed fosters a collaborative work environment to address issues of common concern and embraces the mission of engagement as an administrative professional staff member. Her community partner is Food Finders Food Bank.

Awarded to a faculty member who demonstrates an impact on students and the community both in and out of the classroom, portrays consideration of and commitment to the needs of community partners, and a long-term commitment to the service-learning community.

2022

Monica Miller, Clinical Associate Professor, College of Pharmacy – Dr. Miller’s primary practice site is with the Internal Medicine teams at the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, where she serves as a preceptor for PharmD experiential students and Eskenazi Health pharmacy residents. She also works within the award winning Purdue Kenya Partnership, the Purdue University College of Pharmacy’s leading Global Health Program and consortium partner with the Academic Model Providing Access to Health Care (AMPATH).  Within the program, she co‐coordinates the Purdue Global Health Residency. Monica also teaches several didactic courses in the PharmD curriculum and co‐coordinates some elective courses: Pharmaceutical Care in Developing Countries, Preparing for Postgraduate Residency Training Program, Advanced Clinical Skills, and From Apathy to Empathy. She has a strong research interest in pharmacy education, professional development for students, and the development of sustainable care models for the underserved.

Jason Ware, Clinical Associate Professor, Honors College – Dr. Ware earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies from Purdue University. Jason’s teaching, research, and engagement intersect at the points of undergraduate research, community well-being, quality-of-life studies, and urban development. Jason’s work has been recognized at the college and university levels, receiving several honors, including: the Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award, the John Martinson Honors College Outstanding Teaching Award, the Jefferson Award by Multiplying Good, and the Service-Learning Award. Additionally, he has been named an Experiential Education Champion and a Teaching Academy Inductee.

2021

Rebecca Johnson, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Nursing – Dr. Johnson’s accomplishments exemplify the highest levels of excellence in service-learning. Her passion for helping those in need is evident by the support and guidance rendered in the Water Supply in Developing Countries course which promotes engagement in this universal cause fostering impactful scholarship. Johnson’s work has a direct impact, involving reciprocal, collaborative, and mutually beneficial working relationships with community stakeholders. Students reciprocate the benefits through hands-on learning experience; engineering students design water treatment systems, nursing students work on public and population health issues, biological sciences students work with microbiological issues in water quality, and all students work together to learn and help the communities. 

2020

JoAnn Phillion, Professor, College of Education – The Honduras Study Abroad Program is the longest running study abroad program in the College of Education, and has more than 200 participants.  During their time in Honduras, Purdue students, led by JoAnn, work directly with rural schools, teachers, families, and communities.  The students also engage in service-learning projects co-designed with Honduras community members and based on the community’s identified needs. JoAnn has engaged in research on the program and the participants since 2006, primarily focusing on preparing social justice oriented teachers and the role the study abroad in Honduras and the concepts of service and service-learning play in that development.

2019

Jill Newton, Associate Professor, College of Education – When Dr. Newton was hired in the College of Education (COE) at Purdue University in 2008, she was immediately drawn to the idea of leading a study abroad program focused on service learning. She started her teaching career in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea and subsequently taught in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bulgaria, Tanzania, and Venezuela. She found the idea of creating a “mini Peace Corps” experience for Purdue students appealing. She was awarded a SAIL grant to develop a four-week Maymester in Tanzania program in her first year. She began taking students the following year and has taken students every year since. Service learning has been an important aspect of the program.

Scott Downey, Associate Professor, College of Agriculture – Dr. Downey has developed and implemented an innovative service-learning course AGEC 431 (Advanced Sales and Marketing) which directly benefits the United Way while simultaneously meeting key learning objectives that benefit students. This partnership involves students “selling” the opportunity for businesses in our community to contribute to the United Way and its agencies to learn about the United Way and the needs in our community. These efforts raise funds for the United Way and influence the thinking of students as they move into the work force. 

2018

Jennifer Bay, Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts – Dr. Bay has amassed an exemplary record of service-learning teaching and research while at Purdue University. One such example is her collaboration with Food Finders Food Bank. Along with her students, Bay has contributed to the region’s fight against food insecurity, touching the lives of over 10,000 clients, 1,300 volunteers, and 175 member agencies at Food Finders Food Bank.

2017

Rod N. Williams, Associate Professor, College of Education – Dr. Williams initiated a project to reduce food waste through service-learning. Building a sustainable and secure food production system while strengthening ecological and environmental integrity in agricultural landscapes is a daunting task, and will only become more difficult with a projected human population growth of nearly 9 billion people by 2050 (Lutz et al., 2001). Reducing food waste can not only help strengthen our food production system, but it also offers many environmental and economic benefits. Williams is currently working with a team of extension professionals and an M.S. student to address the consequences of food waste through The Nature of Food Waste program.

Awarded to a team of faculty, staff, students, and/or community stakeholders for outstanding partnership and achievement in the scholarship of engagement.

2023

Reaching Rural Veterans: Rena Sterrett, Jake Newton, Andrea Wellnitz, Heather Eicher-Miller, Kathy Broniarczyk, Dave Topp, Doug Sneddon, Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth – Reaching Rural Veterans (RRV) is a collaboration between the Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) at Purdue University and faith-based food pantries in rural communities. The program brings communities together to provide resources and services that address the needs of military and veteran families, including connecting veterans with healthcare, education, employment, and financial services organizations. The RRV program is collaborative, utilizing partnerships at the local, state and national levels. RRV is engaged in multiple  states, expanding the collaboration’s impact on veterans and their families.

2022

Jiansong (Jason) Zhang, Assistant Professor, Polytechnic Institute – Dr. Zhang’s professional experience includes working for Jiuzhou Engineering Consulting company in China and Gaylor Electric. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the Construction Research Congress (CRC), the ASCE Data Sensing and Analysis (DSA) Committee, the Visualization, Information Modeling, and Simulation (VIMS) Committee, and the Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology (TCCIT) Education Committee. He was the elected Member-at-Large (October 2017-September 2019) and Secretary (October 2019-September 2021) of the ASCE DSA committee. He is also a member of the buildingSMART linked data working group and regulatory interoperability working group. He serves as a reviewer of the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering (since 2015), the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (since 2015), the Journal of Management in Engineering (since 2017), the Journal of Construction Engineering (since 2016), the Journal of Automation in Construction (since 2017), the Journal of Building and Environment (since 2017), the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering (since 2018), the International Journal of Construction Education and Research (since 2018), the Journal of Architectural Engineering (since 2020), the Journal of Information Technology in Construction (since 2020), the International Journal of Construction Management (since 2020), the Journal of Advances in Engineering Software (since 2021), and Expert Systems with Applications (since 2021). He has also served as a reviewer for several national and international conferences.

2021

Families Together: Linda Curley, Cezanne Elias, Rena Sterrett, Austin Toombs, Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth – The lockdown in the spring of 2020 upended families’ daily routines. The isolation and activity restrictions posed significant risks to both mental and physical health for children and adults. Most existing family resilience programs seemed poorly suited to the circumstances of the pandemic. Families Together is tailored to the pandemic and other disasters, seeking to engage both military and civilian families. Over 70 faculty, staff, and students worked together as volunteers to rapidly develop a family support program during the pandemic. Families Together leveraged the collective capacity of the entire HHS community, as well as partners in other colleges and across the country.  Families Together provided a solution to the pandemic-induced perfect storm, in which organizations needed to provide information to their clients but lacked the capacity to locate, evaluate, or produce relevant evidence-informed content. The Military Child Education Coalition had been unable to find any resilience-based content until Families Together.

2020

Water Supply in Developing Countries: Karen Atcheson, Ernest Blatchley, Rebecca Johnson, Danielle Angert, Anika Bhargava, Margaret Busse, Mackenzie Carr, Rachel Gehr, Jordan Harris, Christiane Ley, Jordyn Miller, Lauryn Nunez, Tolulope Odimayomi, Rayanne Schultis, Abigail Street – According to the World Health Organization, approximately 844 million people worldwide do not have access to an improved water source. This deficit affects the health, education, and economy of the global population. As a result, the United Nations recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right in 2010. In an effort to support this right, Purdue formed the interdisciplinary service-learning course, “Water Supply In Developing Countries.” Since its conception, the overarching goal has been to develop water treatment systems that are simple, affordable, sustainable, and accessible. Accomplishments in the Dominican Republic not only improve potable water access on a community scale, but in a broader sense serves build a framework to develop a methodology to make an impact on a global scale.

2018

Star Behavioral Health Providers: Kathy Broniarczyk, Christy Collette, Dave Topp, Janet Wagner – The Star Behavioral Health Providers Program (SBHP) is a training and referral system aimed at improving community mental health care for military members, veterans, and their families. SBHP prepares civilian helping professionals to be more aware of and knowledgeable about military-connected families, psychological problems connected to military service, and evidence-based treatments for those problems. SBHP consists of 3 tiers of training comprising a total of 5 days of training. Tiers 1 and 2 are open to any helping professional wanting to become better prepared and tier 3 is restricted to licensed clinicians. Training is offered in person on location throughout each participating state. A web-based registry, open to the public, can be searched for trained providers’ locations, specialties, and levels of training.

2017

Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI): Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, Tanya Hall, Jennifer Helfrich, Tamara Ogle, Heather Strohm, Michael Wilcox, Tyler Wright – The Purdue Center for Regional Development and the Purdue University Extension officially launched a new program in the fall of 2014 in partnership with Ball State University and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) entitled the Hometown Collaboration Initiative (HCI). HCI is a long-term capacity-building program that is comprised of three phases: Foundation, Building Block and Capstone. Over 300 local residents have served on the local HCI teams in 14 sites and more than 8,600 surveys were completed by local residents as communities plan for their future by launching projects in the areas of leadership, economy, or place making. Communities are in various stages of planning and project execution. Sample projects initiated by HCI sites include building public spaces and a park in Corydon’s downtown arts district, strengthening and expanding the local foods system in Seymour, and expanding and connecting tourism assets through Pulaski County. Two HCI sites, the City of Corydon and Rush County were selected as Stellar Community recipients by the Office of Community and Rural Affairs. Stellar communities support transformative efforts to plan, leverage existing resources, foster regional investments, and stimulate long term grown in the selected sites.

2016

Engineering Projects in Community Service-Learning: Mari-Ellyn Brock, Pamela Brown, Maeve Drummond, William Oakes, Andrew Pierce, Tim Strueh, Jean Trusedell, Charese Williams, Carla Zoltowski – Started at Purdue University in 1995 with just 40 students, the program has grown to its current size of over 500 students per semester and is consistently engaging more than 50 majors each year from across campus. Over one-hundred EPICS Learning Community students take EPICS as a substitute for first year engineering courses. More than 40 community partnerships are active with EPICS. The majority come from the local area but some are from as far away as Columbia, Ecuador, Ireland, and India. EPICS is a highly decorated program, receiving recognition by some of the highest awards in community engagement and education including the U.S. Campus Compact’s Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Campus Award and the National Academy of Engineering’s Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering Technology and Education. EPICS has also been recognized by the NSF’s Corporate Foundation Alliance as an Exemplar Program and is a twice winner of the American Society for Engineering Education’s Chester Carlson Award.

2015

The Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) Team – Corinne E.N. Alexander, Dieudonné Baributsa, Carole L. Braund, Natalie J. Carroll, Heather Fabries, Joan Fulton, William Horan, Katy G. Ibrahim, James Lowenberg-DeBoer, Lisa Mauer, Amanda Mosiman, Larry L. Murdock, George M. Okantey, Maria H. Restrepo-Turner, Jacob Ricker-Gilbert, Charles P. Woloshuk – PICS is made up of faculty and staff members who, working in partnership, have excelled in engagement of the highest form: bringing the benefits of crop storage research directly to those for whom it has the most benefit: farming families in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. The team’s work is making a difference in the lives of millions of people by helping to increase farmer income as well as improve food security. PICS bags were developed in the late 1980s with USAID support by a team of Purdue and Cameroonian researchers led by Entomology professor Larry Murdock to reduce loss of cowpea grain to insect infestation in storage. The project initially targeted cowpeas, an African staple. The first phase of the PICS efforts, starting in 2007, focused on helping farmers in West and Central Africa understand the use of hermetic storage for cowpea and on developing a supply chain to manufacture and sell PICS bags. Grain can be stored in PICS bags until needed, for years if necessary. 

2014

Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP) – Darcy Bullock, Deborah Horton, Teresa Morris, Christopher Day, Howell Li, Alexander Hainen, Stephen Remias, Michelle Mekker, Steven Lavrenz – The JTRP team was recognized for developing performance measures for improving traffic performance based on real-time data they collected, as well as creating annual reports on travel characteristics using crowd-sourced data from mobile phones and vehicle telematics. Their nomination also cited their work on the Indianapolis South-Split project, Purdue football traffic management, and the help they provided the State of Indiana in recovering a greater portion of the cost of damage to state property during auto accidents. James Sturdevant, director of traffic management for the Indiana Department of Transportation, was among those providing letters of support.

2013

Purdue Kenya Program (PKP) – Sonak Pastakia, Ellen Schellhase, Monica Miller, Rakhi Karwa – In 2003 the Purdue University College of Pharmacy formed the PKP with the goal of developing sustainable pharmacy infrastructure and services while providing and expanding sustainable access to high-quality health care. PKP worked with AMPATH, Moi University School of Medicine, and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital to implement an all-encompassing program in clinical services, teaching, pharmacy management, and research. The program has also assisted the rapidly growing population of street children in Eldoret, Kenya. Through these partnerships with local Kenyan pharmacists, PKP creates clinical pharmacy infrastructure to provide inpatient care, pharmacy-based antiretroviral medication management, conceptualized diabetes care, anticoagulation monitoring services, and a research program to investigate the understudied characteristics of patients in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, PKP directs one of the only experiential training programs in clinical pharmacy in sub-Saharan Africa, developing future leaders of global health pharmacy. PKP has helped usher in a much-needed shift in the practice of pharmacy in Kenya by developing opportunities for pharmacists to engage in a patient-focused practice rather than the traditional product-focused practice. PKP’s investment in developing both the physical infrastructure and health care workforce has improved outcomes for thousands of patients. Those numbers will continue to grow as these pharmacists expand their models throughout Kenya and other developing countries.

Awarded to a faculty member who has contributed to K-12 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in Indiana.

2023

Betsy Parkinson, Professor, Purdue College of Science – Parkinson is recognized for her work serving K-12 students through hands-on STEM learning experiences. In collaboration with Purdue Science K-12 Outreach, Parkinson and her team have created a virtual lab, From Microbes to Medicines, for high school science teachers, using materials commonly found in most high schools. Parkinson scaled the lab to be accessible for younger, elementary audiences at Imagination Station in Lafayette, Terre Haute Children’s Museum and the Boys and Girls Club Keenan Stahl location in Indianapolis. Parkinson ships lab kits of materials for From Microbes to Medicines to schools across the country, expanding Purdue’s impact on STEM education nationwide.

2022

Nathan Mentzer, Associate Professor, College of Education & Polytechnic Institute – Dr. Mentzer prepares Engineering/Technology candidates for teacher licensure. Dr. Mentzer’s educational efforts in pedagogical content knowledge are guided by a research theme centered in student learning of engineering design thinking on the secondary level. Nathan was a former middle and high school technology educator in Montana prior to pursuing a doctoral degree. He was a National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) Fellow at Utah State University while pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. After graduation he completed a one year appointment with the Center as a postdoctoral researcher.

2021

S. Selcen Guzey, Associate Professor, College of Education – Community engagement is an integral part of Dr. Guzey’s research. Many of the products of Dr. Guzey’s research are tools for classroom use, such as curricular units of instruction and curriculum assessment instruments. Dr. Guzey is highly sought after to provide professional development on STEM integration using the curriculum materials she has developed. Throughout her career, Dr. Guzey has provided professional development for over 1250 teachers in Minnesota and 250 teachers in Indiana. Dr. Guzey and her team are currently involved in a successful four-year community project funded by the National Science Foundation, Integration of Engineering Design and Life Science: Investigating the influence of an Intervention on Student Interest and Motivation in STEM Field, originally titled Project PULSE. The project investigates the integration of engineering design, practices, and thinking into middle school life science curriculum while providing opportunities for students to foster knowledge of and increase interest in life and biosciences.

2020

Lynn Bryan, Professor, College of Education – Dr. Bryan is an inaugural director for the Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM at Purdue University. During her career, she has secured over $15 million in external funding for her STEM education projects and initiatives. Bryan’s overall portfolio of engagement in K-12 STEM education demonstrates her commitment to investing long-term in the development of innovative capabilities and educational tools that will increase the degree to which K-12 teachers and students are exposed to and engage in high quality, transformative STEM education in the state of Indiana. 

2019

David Feikes, Professor, Mathmatics, Purdue University Northwest – As a recipient of over $3,000,000 in grant funding, Dr. Feikes has mentored thousands of teachers and served tens of thousands of students to enhance mathematics, science, and engineering teaching and learning throughout the state of Indiana. He has partnered with many local and state school corporations to successfully implement several grant-funded projects to enhance mathematics, science, and engineering.

2018

Bill Walker, Research Assistant Professor, Curriculum & Instruction; Associate Director, Indiana GEAR UP – From 2004 to 2016, Walker worked as the director for Purdue Science K-12 Outreach. As director, Walker oversaw six outreach coordinators and utilized a budget of approximately $1,000,000 per year to improve science and mathematics education in Indiana. Through Science K-12 Outreach, Walker designed research-based programs to bring the latest developments in discipline-based science and mathematics education to classrooms. In 2017, Walker accepted his current position as Associate Director of Indiana GEAR UP which works with schools across the state of Indiana to increase the number of students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education and to conduct research to better understand student STEM learning, persistence, and entry into post-secondary study and careers.

2017

Jill Newton, Associate Professor, College of Education – Dr. Newton was hired at Purdue University in 2008 to serve as mathematics education faculty in the College of Education. Since her arrival at Purdue University, Dr. Newton has made significant contributions to K-12 STEM Education in Indiana. She has generously shared her passion and expertise in mathematics education with undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, and teacher educators in Indiana and across the nation. Her engagement and productivity have taken many forms as she has formed partnerships and garnered resources to promote effective mathematics teaching, learning, and significant research and scholarship.

2016

Natalie Carroll, Professor in Agriculture and Biological Engineering and Extension Education – Dr. Carroll has been involved in PK-12 engagement activities since coming to Purdue in April 1995. She has reached 6,909 youth directly through events and workshops on the Purdue campus. Her support of the Indiana 4-H natural resource projects has impacted 428,361 youth enrolled in 10 project areas during the nearly 22 years that she has been at Purdue. Her community partner is Zach Beasley, Tippecanoe County surveyor.

2015

Carla Johnson, Professor of Science Education – Dr. Johnson’s work in Indiana is focused on engaging industry, business, K-12, and higher education in innovative partnerships to advance STEM Education.  She has worked with the Motorsports STEM program and the emerging Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indianapolis.  Through this kind of work, Dr. Johnson has increased the number and types of opportunities for students and teachers to engage with STEM professionals across the state. Furthermore, Dr. Johnson has supported colleagues on campus to co-develop and deliver creative, inquiry-based, and technology infused STEM programs. She was also designated by Governor Pence to lead the state of Indiana GEAR UP application. Her leadership in these programs clearly demonstrate her contributions and efforts to move K-12 STEM education in Indiana forward in significant ways.

2014

Brenda Capobianco, Associate Professor of Science Education – Dr. Capobianco’s discovery, learning, and engagement activities have a unified focus on STEM education in K-12 schools. As such, her work aligns well with the intent of the Foster Award to acknowledge a faculty member who has made demonstrable contributions to improving STEM teaching and learning in K-12 grade levels in Indiana schools. A nationally and internationally recognized scholar in the field of STEM education, Professor Capobianco’s work addresses teachers’ science teaching practices, increasing the representation of women and minorities in STEM fields, and the integration of engineering design as a vehicle for science learning in the classroom.