Appointments, honors and activities
January 31, 2014
• Faculty and staff honors:
- Bill Lewellen, the Herman Krannert Distinguished Professor of Management, received the Sagamore of the Wabash Award from Gov. Mike Pence on Jan. 22. The award was given for his longtime service to the state as a Purdue faculty member. Lewellen joined the Krannert School of Management faculty in 1964 and will retire at the end of this academic year after 50 years. He served 21 years as director of Krannert Executive Education Programs and was cited in a 2005 study in the Journal of Financial Literature as one of the most prolific finance researchers of the last half century. He received the Salgo-Noren Award for outstanding teaching in the graduate programs four times. Last fall, he received the Krannert Distinguished Service Award recipient.
- P.V. Ramachandran, professor of chemistry, was awarded the Vikram Sarabhai Chair of the Indian National Science Academy for 2014-2015. The international award recognizes distinguished senior scientists.
- Sonak Pastakia, associate professor of pharmacy practice, was selected to receive the 2014 Phi Delta Chi Albert B. Prescott Pharmacy Leadership Award. The award is given annually to a young pharmacist no more than 10 years into his or her career who has demonstrated exemplary leadership qualities indicative of someone likely to emerge as a major leader in pharmacy over the course of his or her career. The award is coordinated by the Phi Delta Chi Pharmacy Leadership and Education Institute. More information about the award is available online at http://plei.org/prescott-award/
• Notables:
- Purdue's Supplemental Instruction (SI) program was named the Program of the Year by the International Center for Supplemental Instruction. Chelsea Hunter, a senior in the College of Science and an SI leader at Purdue, was named an Outstanding Student Leader. The SI program develops academic support communities. The peer-led program seeks to promote active, collaborative learning involving critical thinking and transferable study skills. The goal of the program is to improve the retention rate of students enrolled in the SI-linked courses and helping students pass these courses at a higher rate. The awards will be presented May 23-25 during the International Conference on Supplemental Instruction in Chicago.
• Student honors:
- Three Purdue Hackers teams won awards at MHacks III in Detroit, one of the largest collegiate hackathons, in which teams have 36 hours to write a new program or make an innovation. "Spark," an onsite mobile checkout and payment system, won the Most Technically Impressive Hack and Most Viable Start-up prizes. "Spark" was created by Luke Walsh, a junior in computer engineering; Jack Hammons, a junior in computer engineering; Viraj Sinha, a junior in computer science; and Thomas Killbride, a junior in electrical engineering. "Tunr," a web-based cloud music library manager and player won the Apigee Prize. "Tunr" was created by juniors in computer engineering Hayden McAfee and Grant Gunima. "EverShare," which uses iBeacon to allow instant peer to multi-peer information sharing, won the Best Evernote Hack Prize. "EverShare" was created by Yi Qin, a graduate student in computer engineering, and Baoluo Wang, a colleague from another university. More information about the winning submissions is available at http://mhackswinter2014.challengepost.com/submissions
- Purdue University Libraries selected the winners of its “Why I Love Purdue Libraries" contest. The top winners include: Muhammad Afiq J Junaidy, a sophomore in chemical engineering, College of Engineering - first place; Denver Bailey a senior in film and video studies, College of Liberal Arts - second place; and Andrew Martin, a senior in professional writing and theater - third place. The video contest was open to all currently enrolled Purdue students. Finalists were selected by the Purdue Libraries Undergraduate Student Libraries Advisory Council, and winners were confirmed by Purdue Libraries associate deans. First place received $400, second place $250 and third place $100.