Appointments, honors and activities

• Faculty and staff honors:

- James Mullins, dean of Purdue Libraries, was awarded Indiana University’s 2017 Information and Library Science Distinguished Alumni Award in June. Mullins earned his doctorate from IU in what was the School of Library and Information Science, now part of the School of Informatics and Computing. He spent 19 years as an associate professor in library and information science while serving as an associate librarian at the Maurer School of Law at IU in the mid-1970s. He then went on to become the director of Library Services at IU South Bend from 1978-96. He also was the university librarian and director of the Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University in 1996. He took over as the associate director for administration for libraries at MIT in 2000, where he remained until coming to Purdue in 2004. The Information and Library Science Distinguished Alumni Award was established in 1977 and recognizes an alumnus or alumna who is making or has made an outstanding contribution to the Library Science/Information Science profession.

-Manoj Patankar has been appointed head of the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. Patankar was previously a professor of aviation science at Saint Louis University. Patankar had served as vice president for academic affairs, dean of Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, and chair of the Department of Aviation Science at Saint Louis University. He authored four books, including “Safety Culture: Building and Sustaining a Cultural Change in Aviation and Healthcare.” He helped create the Center for Aviation Safety Research, the Center for Sustainability, the Center for Global Citizenship, the Center for Intercultural Studies, and a series of Safety Across High-Consequence Industries conferences. He has also directed over $6 million in funded research. More information on this appointment visit https://polytechnic.purdue.edu/newsroom/patankar-appointed-head-of-aviation-and-transportation-technology. 

• Notables:

- ITaP Research Computing staff members gave presentations and led interactive workshops on a variety of topics at the Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) conference this past week in New Orleans. Topics covered by Purdue staff ranged from a novel data storage system to increasing representation of women in high-performance computing. More information on these presentations can be found at https://www.itap.purdue.edu/newsroom/news/170707_PEARC17.html.