This week’s ‘Thumbs Up’ recipients

Kristin Akridge and the College of Education IT team

Kristin (Purdue IT) deserves a thumbs-up for being helpful, knowledgeable and a great teammate. She brings a wealth of experience from Frito-Lay and has jumped right in while learning her new role. Even though Kristin is new to the role, she’s already gone out of her way to help others. She recently helped me resolve a ticket I’d been stumped on for several days. She figured out the issue in minutes, and her suggestions led to the fix. Kristin is always willing to jump in and help, and her ability to find quick, effective solutions makes her a great addition to the team. Boiler Up! — Josh Anderson (Purdue IT)

David Leonard and Matthew Nickle

David and Matthew (Computer Science) helped us so much at our first-ever Robotics Day at Purdue. They were everywhere during the event, moving robots, bringing them from labs across campus and doing the heavy lifting. With robots, there is a ton of heavy lifting. They joined the event late in the process just because they are super helpful and knew that we could use an assist. They do all of this work with amazing attitudes and positive vibes. They are both an absolute joy to work with, and we are grateful to them for their hard work. — Cheryl Pierce, Nichole Turner (both Science) and Molly Walker (Computer Science)

Marquetta Strait

Marquetta (Student Success Technologies) has played an essential role in advancing our work with transfer students through her outstanding support of the decision-making and sense of belonging focus groups. Over the past few months, she has supported each phase of this work. From revising protocols to leading recruitment and helping with facilitation, Marquetta has provided seamless support across all nine focus groups. Her dedication to deepening our understanding of the transfer student experience — and her commitment to improving it — is unwavering. We are grateful for her expertise, reliability and the care she brings to this work. — Margaret Ascolani (Institutional Data Analytics + Assessment)

Kevin Burk

Kevin (Purdue IT) has been instrumental in providing his expertise for the project to migrate and consolidate the Purdue Fort Wayne Schlage Sitemaster database service onto a new server VM, transitioning from separate stand-alone databases hosted on aging Windows 10 VMs to a true client/server architecture. His extensive knowledge of SQL and database systems has been indispensable; without his contributions, progress would have been significantly impeded. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation for his efforts. — Jeff Eley (Regional IT Expense Recovery)

Robert Meagher

Rob (Purdue IT) is one of the most professional, knowledgeable and helpful individuals I have ever met. I have nominated him because he gives his all to everything he does, to his team and to those he helps on a daily basis. Thank you for all your hard work, Rob! — Julie Schaadt (Office of the Provost)

Abigail Engelberth

Thank you to Abigail (Agricultural and Biological Engineering) for being the MaPSAC Professional Development Subcommittee’s guest speaker for spring 2026! We all enjoyed your presentation! — Katie May (Public Health)

Christy Maloney

The Spring Undergraduate Research Conference is a very busy time for our office, and Christy (Purdue Systems Security) went above and beyond in getting us set up with our IT needs. Christy was able to help us with our items and was quick to adjust our request to support more of the event. Christy saved us time and effort both in our pre-event and during-event planning! — JJ Sadler (Undergraduate Research)

Purdue’s For Me team

Julia Turner, Erica Laffoon (both Admissions) and everyone else involved in setting up Purdue’s For Me have done such a great job with these events this year! Campus is always so bright and full of energy on those days thanks to everyone involved in helping students see how Purdue could be their future home! — Sam Day (Global Engineering Programs)

Jo Cardarelli

Congratulations to Jo (Academic Success Center) and the Academic Success Center in Indianapolis for reaching a significant milestone of 1,000 peer-led tutoring appointments this year. Can’t wait to see what milestones are hit in year three! — Chris Krull (Student Success)