Purdue’s Community Impact Summit celebrates Office of Engagement’s 25-year legacy

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Office of Engagement at Purdue University hosted the 2026 Community Impact Summit on Feb. 25, bringing together more than 250 faculty, innovators, nonprofit leaders and philanthropic partners to strengthen collaboration. 

The office, which is celebrating its 25th year, held the summit to highlight Purdue’s commitment to partnerships that connect the university’s expertise with the needs of communities across Indiana and the nation. 

Roberto Gallardo, vice president for engagement, emphasized how the university’s “brain trust” — faculty, staff and students — can connect with communities to build resilience and prosperity locally, nationally and globally.

“This summit reflects how Purdue Engagement is evolving — 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,” Gallardo said.

Gallardo also highlighted initiatives to strengthen engagement efforts, including the 2026 Broader Impact Fellows, the Purdue United Way campaign and the Lilly Endowment Inc.-funded College & Community Collaboration Initiative. 

Those who attended said the summit illustrated what partnerships can achieve.

“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,” said Manabu Taketani, a leadership development specialist with the Office of Student Life: Leadership, Engagement and Community.

Among the highlights of the summit was a fireside chat with Cynthia Cardona, president of the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation and vice president of social impact for Eli Lilly and Company. Virginia Vought, senior executive director for the Office of Engagement, moderated the conversation, which explored how organizations can work together to address complex challenges.

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

Other talks demonstrated how expertise at Purdue is addressing health care challenges.

Jasmine 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. A partnership centered in trust and mutual goals advances health outcomes for food-insecure Indianapolis residents, she said, and she also pointed to the opening in 2025 of a brick-and-mortar charitable pharmacy as an achievement.

The day concluded with Dimitrios 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. 

“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 solutions across Indiana and beyond,” Peroulis said.

The summit also recognized community-engaged scholarship through these 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. PKP collaborates with Kenyan universities, hospitals and community organizations to expand access to high-quality health care while training future global health leaders.

• The JoAnn Miller Exemplary Community Partner Award was presented to the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation (WREC) and 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. Miller Elementary School collaborates with Purdue researchers on innovative K-4 science education.  

View more about the award winners here.

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 Office of Engagement can be found here. For more information, photos and videos about the event, click here. 

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 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations 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 integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.