Trailblazer Awards go to two professors

Two associate professors have received Trailblazer Awards for midcareer excellence and impact in research and scholarship.

The Trailblazer Award was launched by the Provost's Office in January 2017 as an annual award for midcareer faculty members whose recent research, scholarship or creative work has made a significant impact in their disciplines in the College of Education, College of Liberal Arts, College of Health and Human Sciences or Purdue University Libraries.

The two Trailblazer Award recipients for 2020 are:

* Karen Foli, associate professor of nursing in the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Foli generates theory used to guide patient care and support nurses’ well-being. A common theme in Foli’s work is trauma-informed care for nontraditional families and nurses working at the bedside. Her books have received awards for excellence in nursing education and psychiatric nursing. Foli is currently studying nurses’ psychological trauma experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and trauma as a predictor of substance use in nurses. She is the inaugural director of the PhD in nursing program, has received a Charles B. Murphy Award for teaching and is named in the Purdue University Book of Great Teachers.

* David Purpura, associate professor of human development and family studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Purpura studies how children in preschool through third grade learn math and how to identify children at risk for later math difficulties. He develops and evaluates interventions using picture books and games to support children’s early mathematics skills. Along with an author and an illustrator, Purpura developed a series of picture books embedded with math concepts, which he is currently studying to see how these books can be used to improve the early mathematics skills of children. He is a faculty associate at the Center for Families.

Recipients of the Purdue University Trailblazer Award will receive a plaque of recognition and a monetary prize of $2,000.

 

Writer: Kelsey Schnieders Lefever, kschnied@purdue.edu