Top 5 stories from Purdue University

‘Purdue News Now’

An expedition to locate Amelia Earhart’s lost aircraft and a new radiopharmaceutical degree program are among this week’s biggest Boilermaker stories. Trevor Peters has that and more in this week’s edition of “Purdue News Now.”

Plus, check out five good stories below you may have missed.

Purdue and its campuses earn top honors for service to military students

From student application to graduation, Purdue University is being recognized for its service to military-affiliated students through the state of Indiana’s highest form of achievement, a Tier 1 Collegiate Purple Star of Indiana award, in its inaugural year. The Indiana Commission for Higher Education named Purdue’s main campus a top-tier supportive environment for military-affiliated students, alongside Purdue University Fort Wayne and Purdue University Northwest. Purdue is the only four-year institution in Indiana to receive this distinction.

Media contact: Erin Murphy, ermurphy@purdue.edu

Purdue launches cutting-edge graduate degree in radiopharmaceutical manufacturing in Indianapolis through industry partnership

Responding to the growing demand in Indiana and across the country for skilled workers in the burgeoning field of theranostics — the use of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceutical drug products for the treatment of various types of cancer — Purdue University will soon launch the nation’s first graduate degree directly focused on radiopharmaceutical manufacturing. Underscoring that commitment, Purdue will partner with Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical manufacturing leader SpectronRx to build a dedicated radiopharmaceutical manufacturing training facility at company headquarters, in close proximity to several leading radiopharmaceutical manufacturers who have established production facilities in the Indianapolis area.

Media contact: Derek Schultz, schul221@purdue.edu

Purdue Research Foundation and Archaeological Legacy Institute to embark on expedition to identify Amelia Earhart’s missing plane

On the 88th anniversary of her mysterious disappearance, Purdue Research Foundation and Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) announced a remarkable joint effort to locate Amelia Earhart’s lost aircraft and help complete the heroic journey she began almost a century ago. The search, named the Taraia Object Expedition, will begin when a field team organized by ALI visits, by sea, the Pacific island Nikumaroro in November 2025 to confirm whether a visual anomaly known as the Taraia Object, seen in satellite and other imagery in the island’s lagoon, is what remains of Earhart’s plane. Nikumaroro is approximately halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

Media contact: Erin Murphy, ermurphy@purdue.edu

AP video — Expedition launched for Amelia Earhart’s plane

The Purdue Research Foundation is joining the Archaeological Legacy Institute in an expedition to Nikumaroro Island, located in the central South Pacific. The goal is to identify whether an object in the island’s lagoon, known as the Taraia Object, is the remains of the long-lost 10-E Electra aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart during her last voyage. If successful, this expedition will solve a mystery people have wondered about since Earhart disappeared in 1937.

Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu

Ericsson CTO and Purdue collaborator Mallik Tatipamula elected to Royal Society

In a landmark achievement, Mallikarjun (Mallik) Tatipamula, chief technology officer at Ericsson Silicon Valley and long-standing Purdue University collaborator, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest and most prestigious scientific academy, founded in 1660. Tatipamula’s election is a proud moment for the Purdue community due to his long and deeply impactful association with the university. He has delivered guest lectures in courses such as IP Generation and Management — An Inventor’s View and Ideas to Innovation, enriching students’ understanding by bridging classroom theory with real-world innovation.

Media contact: Erin Murphy, ermurphy@purdue.edu

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About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.