96 first-year PhD students named Presidential Excellence Award fellows through graduate program to advance their scholarship, research

Heather Hayen is not your traditional doctoral student. After earning a graduate degree in elementary education, Hayen spent several years as a teacher, including time in a middle school classroom for deaf students. Drawing from those experiences, she saw how curriculum, teacher preparation and literacy education intersect, particularly the preservice experiences and institutional contexts that shape teachers’ knowledge, outlook and long-term retention.

And now, the journey that brought her to Boilermaker country has reached another milestone: Hayen is one of 96 graduate students selected as 2025-26 Presidential Excellence Award recipients, a faculty-nominated fellowship supported by Purdue’s Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars.

A banquet celebrating this year’s recipients drew more than 300 students and faculty nominators in a recent event featuring a message by Provost Patrick Wolfe.

“This Presidential Excellence Award represents not only individual recognition but also the mentorship and scholarly community that have supported my development,” says Hayen, who is studying under Melanie Kuhn, the Jean Adamson Stanley Professor of Literacy. “It feels less like a culmination and more like a charge to continue doing careful, principled work that contributes to curriculum scholarship and ultimately supports teachers and students in meaningful ways.”

The 96 first-year graduate students were awarded the fellowships through a program that recognizes outstanding PhD applicants who demonstrate strong potential to contribute to their discipline and to college and university priorities. Award recipients receive $10,000 per year for up to four years as a supplement to their base stipend or salary, dependent on enrollment and satisfactory academic and research progress.

“The Presidential Excellence Awards fellowship program is a great example of how Purdue works to bring in and support top graduate students who strengthen our research and help extend Purdue’s impact worldwide,” says Odalys Torres Luquis, senior program manager of Purdue’s Office of Graduate Recruitment and Success.

The provost’s office established the Presidential Excellence Award to help recruit the best and brightest students. This year’s 96 recipients were selected from nearly 300 nominations across every Purdue college — up from 75 awardees last year. There were 127 in the program’s inaugural year in 2023, when Wolfe announced a series of measures supporting graduate student efforts, recognizing their role as engines that power the university’s research and teaching.

A legacy Boilermaker finds new connections

A third-generation Boilermaker, Susanna Berg says the Presidential Excellence Award was crucial in helping her select Purdue and adjust to graduate school life, moving hundreds of miles from her hometown of Tucker, Georgia. The university has become a special place for her family — Berg’s parents met at Purdue in the 1990s, and both grandfathers were Boilermakers in the 1960s.

“This award has already provided opportunities to present my work with the department and conferences around the country as well as get one step ahead in finding connections with other researchers,” Berg says. “I am excited to continue to learn from my Presidential Excellence Award peers in different disciplines as they grow and represent Purdue.”

Berg grew up loving the outdoors. She factored that passion into her career aspirations, sparking an interest in agriscience, environmental systems and animal science at the University of Georgia. She also was motivated to focus her studies on protecting future food systems with extreme temperatures, natural disasters and farmland loss becoming more frequent.

“Creating a resilient agroecosystem in the U.S. and globally is essential to ensuring our survival as challenges progress,” says Berg, who is working on her PhD in the Agroecology Lab of her advisor, assistant agronomy professor Yichao Rui. “I hope to work hands-on with growers to teach sustainable principles and help them to conduct this change on their farms. In the long term, I want to continue teaching and Extension work at a university.”

Interdisciplinary-driven benefits of PhD program

Growing up close to the sea and surrounded by a diverse natural ecosystem in Puerto Rico, Erick Joel Negrón Álvarez developed a deep appreciation for the environment from an early age. He began his academic journey studying environmental biology in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and later worked in environmental consulting in San Juan.

Living in a region frequently impacted by storms, infrastructure challenges and environmental pressures also exposed him to the realities of climate vulnerability and resource management, particularly concerns about drinking water quality. There, he gained a unique perspective on these issues where power outages, water stagnation in pipes and microbial growth within infrastructure systems can directly affect water quality and public health.

Now, as a first-generation Latino graduate student in the Midwest pursuing a doctorate in sustainability and environmental engineering, Negrón approaches environmental challenges from a more engineering-focused perspective, emphasizing the development of practical solutions to complex problems.

“Coming from a science background, I felt that pursuing graduate studies in an engineering-focused environment would allow me to develop new technical skills and perspectives. At the same time, Purdue’s interdisciplinary programs made it possible to maintain strong connections to ecological and microbiological research, which aligned closely with my interests,” says Negrón, who is studying under Caitlin Proctor, an assistant professor of sustainability engineering and environmental engineering.

For his doctoral studies, Negrón is focusing on microbial communities in water systems and how they influence the safety, performance and resilience of water infrastructure. He is particularly interested in how environmental stressors, infrastructure design and operational conditions shape microbial behavior in both natural and built environments, and how this understanding can be leveraged to improve water quality, public health and sustainability outcomes.

“Seeing how fragile critical infrastructure could be, and how directly it affected public health and daily life, shaped my interest in environmental systems, water resources and sustainable infrastructure,” he says. “These experiences made environmental challenges feel very real and personal, rather than abstract or theoretical.”

Encouraged that their work is recognized, supported

Biomedical engineering student Evan Larson describes winning a Presidential Excellence Award as a meaningful honor at this early stage of his doctoral training. Through his studies, he seeks to better understand post-traumatic osteoarthritis following ACL injury, with his research examining how biomechanical trauma interacts with systemic inflammation and the gut microbiome to influence long-term joint degeneration. He is studying under Deva Chan, an associate professor of biomedical engineering.

“This recognition supports and motivates me to approach these questions with even greater precision, depth and creativity,” says Larson, whose time playing soccer at Grinnell College deeply shaped his interest in injury, recovery and long-term musculoskeletal health. “Academically, the award strengthens my drive to pursue rigorous and translational research focused on post-traumatic osteoarthritis following anterior cruciate ligament injury. It is encouraging to know that the vision guiding my work is recognized and supported by the broader Purdue community.”

For Hayen, who is pursuing a PhD in curriculum studies, her motivation to pursue this area of study emerged directly from her classroom experience. There, she saw how curriculum decisions, often made far from classrooms, impacted what teachers were allowed to do and how students experienced learning.

“Those years in schools continue to shape the questions I ask and keep my research anchored in the lived realities of teachers and students,” says Hayen, who received a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising from Central Michigan University and a master’s in education from Hunter College.

Full list of recipients of 2025-26 Presidential Excellence Awards

Why Purdue?

“I was especially drawn to the research being done in water quality, microbial ecology and infrastructure resilience. Given my background and experiences in Puerto Rico, I saw significant opportunities to grow and make meaningful contributions in these areas. The chance to work with faculty who are addressing real-world environmental challenges, and who value interdisciplinary collaboration, made Purdue the ideal place for me to continue my academic journey and develop as a researcher.”
— Erick Joel Negrón Álvarez, PhD student, sustainability engineering and environmental engineering

“Purdue felt like the place where everything I had been building toward finally came together. With my background spanning computational joint modeling and microbiome-driven immune modulation, Purdue provides a uniquely positioned platform to connect these domains in a meaningful way. The institutional resources, collaborative culture and translational focus create an opportunity not simply to study injury but to redefine how it is understood and ultimately treated.”
— Evan Larson, PhD student, biomedical engineering

“The draw to Purdue was its strong community of scholars in curriculum and teacher education, its emphasis on rigorous theoretical engagement, and its commitment to connecting research with practice. I was looking for a program that would challenge me intellectually while still valuing the practical realities of schooling. Purdue has provided that environment, pushing me to sharpen my thinking, expand my theoretical grounding and engage in meaningful scholarly dialogue.”
— Heather Hayen, PhD student, curriculum studies

“Purdue has always had a special place in my heart since both of my grandfathers attended in the ’60s, and my parents met each other here in the ’90s! Seeing Purdue’s reputation in agriculture grow over the years made it my top choice for graduate school.”
— Susanna Berg, PhD student, agroecology and environmental systems