Review & Highlights

Community Impact Summit

February 25, 2026

West Lafayette, IN

Strengthening Partnerships for Impact: Purdue’s Community Impact Summit Celebrates 25 Years of Engagement

The Office of Engagement at Purdue University hosted the 2026 Community Impact Summit on February 25, bringing together more than 250 faculty, innovators, nonprofit leaders, and philanthropic partners for a day dedicated to strengthening collaboration and advancing community impact.

The summit highlighted Purdue’s commitment to reciprocal partnerships that connect the university’s expertise with the real-world needs of communities across Indiana and beyond.

Roberto Gallardo, vice president for engagement, reflected on the 25-year legacy and evolving role of universities in society and the importance of building trust through collaboration. He emphasized the Office of Engagement’s role in connecting the university’s “brain trust”—faculty, staff, and students—with communities through partnerships that build resilience and prosperity locally and globally.

Gallardo also highlighted several initiatives designed to strengthen engagement efforts across the university, including the 2026 broader impact fellows, community engagement grants, the Purdue United Way campaign, the Lilly Endowment funded College & Community Collaboration, the Connector Ecosystem, and the BRIDGE impact tracking system.

For 25 years, Purdue’s Office of Engagement has shown what’s possible when the university and our communities work side by side. As we look to the future, we’re committed to deepening those relationships by connecting Purdue’s research, teaching and engagement with the real-world expertise of our partners to create solution across Indiana and beyond.”

– Dimitri Peroulis
Senior Vice President for Partnerships

258

Total Attendees

21

Exchange Tables Featuring Partnerships & Purdue Resources

6

Honorary Toasts from Foundational Leaders

Summit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit Photo

Lightning Talks Highlight Health and Workforce Solutions

Two lightning talks demonstrated how Purdue expertise is addressing community challenges in healthcare access and workforce development.

Jasmine D. Gonzalvo, director of the Center for Health Excellence, Quality, and Innovation (CHEQI) and clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy, discussed the evolution of CHEQI’s relationship with the state’s largest hunger relief organization, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana. From drive-through clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to the grand opening of a brick-and-mortar charitable pharmacy in 2025, a partnership centered in trust and mutual goals advances health outcomes for food-insecure Indianapolis residents.

Watch Gonzalvo’s full talk here:


Sascha Harrell, director of education and workforce for the Indiana Manufacturing Competitiveness Center (IN-MaC), shared how IN-MaC Design & Innovation Studios are helping build the manufacturing talent pipeline by shaping students’ beliefs about what’s possible for them – starting in elementary school. Their research that teachers’ willingness to use new technologies into the classroom depends on whether they see themselves as capable of exploring them: experimenting, learning, and even failing along the way.

Watch Harrell’s full talk here:

It was reassuring to see the tremendous impact that Engagement has achieved in the local community and statewide over these past years. It hardly seems possible that it has been 25 years since we embarked on this endeavor.

– Vic Lechtenberg



This summit reflects how Purdue Engagement is evolving. We are bringing our faculty, staff and students alongside communities as partners to create solutions. As we look ahead, our focus is on strengthening those connections, scaling what works and ensuring our land-grant mission continues to deliver real, measurable impact where it matters most.

– Roberto Gallardo
Vice President of Engagement

Summit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit Photo

Partners Panel: Community Partners Share Lessons from Collaboration

A panel of community leaders reflected on the impact of their long-standing partnerships with Purdue. The discussion was moderated by Lindsey Payne, associate professor of practice in sustainability and environmental engineering.

Panelists included:

The panelists shared examples of collaborative projects and discussed how trust, communication and shared goals help sustain successful partnerships. They also encouraged continued collaboration to address pressing community challenges.

Watch the full Partners Panel here:


Thank you for the opportunity to share about our collective work. The event was wonderful and I made many new connections. So proud to be able to celebrate Purdue’s 25 years of community engagement.

– Monica Ramsey
Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

Summit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit Photo

Celebrating the Engagement Award Winners

The summit also recognized leaders in community-engaged scholarship through Purdue’s annual engagement awards.

The Rising Star Award was presented to Andrea Pires dos Santos, associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, for her globally connected One Health research partnerships focused on wildlife conservation, zoonotic disease prevention, and environmental sustainability.

The Engaged Unit/Program Award was presented to the Purdue Kenya Partnership (PKP), housed in Purdue’s College of Pharmacy. Established in 2003 through the AMPATH Consortium, PKP is one of the longest-standing global pharmacy partnerships in the United States. The program collaborates with Kenyan universities, hospitals and community organizations to expand access to high-quality healthcare while training future global health leaders.

The JoAnn Miller Exemplary Community Partner Award was presented to Wabash River Enhancement Corporation (WREC) and Thomas Miller Elementary School. WREC has been a long-standing Purdue partner dedicated to improving water quality and strengthening connections between communities and the Wabash River. Thomas Miller Elementary School collaborates with Purdue researchers on innovative K–4 science education through the VetaHumanz-Moves curriculum.

Learn more about the award winners.

The summit served as a powerful reminder: we cannot just talk about the value of higher education; we have to demonstrate it. Collaborating directly with our community to drive meaningful change is exactly how we do that. I left the summit feeling re-energized and excited for what we can accomplish together!

– Manabu Taketani
Leadership Development Specialist with the Office of Student Life: Leadership, Engagement, and Community

Summit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit Photo

A Fireside Chat with Cynthia Cardona

Virginia Vought, senior executive director for the Office of Engagement, moderated a fireside chat with Cynthia Cardona, president of the Lilly Foundation and vice president of social impact for Eli Lilly and Company.

Their conversation explored how organizations across sectors can work together to address complex challenges, emphasizing the importance of long-term strategies that build local capacity.

Cardona also highlighted Lilly’s 30×30 initiative, which aims to improve access to quality healthcare for 30 million people annually by 2030. Since launching in 2016, Lilly supported efforts reached approximately 24 million people globally in 2024 through advancing medicine discovery, strengthening access programs, and supporting philanthropic initiatives.

It was an honor to be part of the Office of Engagement’s 25th anniversary and Community Impact Summit. The trust and collaboration among Purdue and its community partners were powerful—and clearly driving meaningful impact.

– Cynthia Cardona
Lilly Foundation & Eli Lilly and Company

Summit PhotoSummit PhotoSummit Photo

The Engagement Exchange Sparks Collaboration

One of the summit’s most interactive sessions was the Engagement Exchange, a networking event where participants rotated among tables to learn about Purdue-community partnerships.

This year’s exchange featured 14 Purdue-community collaborations and seven engagement resources. Participants explored partnerships addressing engineering challenges, food systems, community health initiatives, local government collaboration and more.

View the full list of Engagement Exchange participants.

The day was beautifully facilitated and demonstrated the power of engagement. Personally, this day filled my cup and allowed me to connect with many nonprofit friends. Seeing gold and black threads through the fabric of our nonprofit community is a beautiful thing.

– Jillian Henry
Purdue for Life

Celebrating 25 Years of Engagement

The day concluded with a toast by Dimitri Peroulis, senior vice president for partnerships, recognizing the Office of Engagement’s 25-year legacy and the leaders who helped build Purdue’s engagement mission. Those recognized included:

  • President Emeritus Martin Jischke, who established the Office of Engagement
  • Don Gentry, the office’s inaugural leader
  • Vic Lechtenberg, who expanded engagement efforts and established the Purdue Center for Regional Development
  • Jay Akridge, who strengthened the office’s connection to Purdue’s land-grant mission
  • Suresh Garimella, who advanced the scholarship of engagement across the university
  • Steve Abel, who helped institutionalize engagement in promotion and tenure processes

To commemorate the milestone, the Office of Engagement is developing a book highlighting the partnerships and stories that have shaped Purdue’s community impact over the past 25 years.

A timeline of the last 25 years of the Office of Engagement can be found here.

Photography for the Community Impact Summit event was provided by David Teter.

View the Purdue Today story of the 2026 Community Impact Summit here.