Appointments, honors and activities

• Faculty and staff honors:

- Al Gilewicz, director of Energy and Utilities within Purdue Facilities, recently accepted the ICONICS President’s Award for Innovative IoT App on behalf of the University. This honor was awarded for energy-metering initiatives that have been implemented across campus and data visualization utilizing an Internet of Things (IoT) process, one of the first developments of its kind to be adopted in higher education. Energy and Utilities continues to collaborate with ITaP to fully implement the technology which will enable data visualization and real-time decision making.

- Richard Thomas, professor of visual and performing arts, is author of “Music as a Chariot: The Evolutionary Origins of Theatre in Time, Sound, and Music,” which will be released Feb. 13 by Routledge, an academic publisher in the humanities and social sciences. In the book, Thomas takes readers on a journey through time to discover how music, language and mimesis co-evolved to produce the complex experience of theater.

- Yvonne Pitts, associate professor of history and American studies, and Lowell Kane, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Center, were recognized for their Sex, History, and the Cities study abroad program, which received the Gender and Sexuality Knowledge Community’s Exemplary Program Award for 2018 by National Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA). NASPA is the leading international association for the advancement, health and sustainability of the student affairs profession.

• Notables:

 - The Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Laboratory School received a grant for eight new Strider bikes, children’s bikes that will be used to enhance motor skills by improving balance skills. The bikes are made without pedals so children can learn to balance safely before moving up to a full-size bicycle. The school is developing a curriculum for use on the playground and in the large motor rooms to help children develop pre-bicycle skills. The school is operated by the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, which is housed in the College of Health and Human Sciences. The school teaches students from 6 weeks to 5 years old in seven different classes, enrolls nearly 100 students and maintains a waiting list. While the school teaches young children it also gives Purdue students experience in children's educational development.