Purdue trustees approve faculty appointments

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (Dec. 6) approved the appointments of two named professorships.

Trustees ratified the appointments of Marion K. Underwood as Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences and Trevor Wooley as the Andris A. Zoltners Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.

Underwood has been dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences and professor of psychological sciences at Purdue since 2018. She is one of the foremost researchers in the area of developmental origins and outcomes of social aggression and how adolescents’ digital communication relates to adjustment. Her work appears in numerous scientific journals, and the National Institutes of Health has continuously supported her research program since 1995. In 2003, she authored the book “Social Aggression among Girls,” and in 2015, she was featured in the CNN special report "#Being13: Inside the Secret World of Teens.”

Underwood previously worked at The University of Texas at Dallas and Reed College. She received the Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from UT Dallas, was granted a FIRST Award and a K02 Mid-Career Independent Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Wooley has made fundamental contributions to several problems in the area of number theory within mathematics in the past decade, specifically the Hardy-Littlewood circle method and Waring’s problem. He has received the Salem Prize in mathematics and was twice an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians – one of the highest honors in mathematics.

Wooley came to Purdue in August 2019 from the University of Bristol, U.K., where he was professor of mathematics and served as head of Pure Mathematics from 2015-16. Prior to that he was professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan, where he served as department chair from 2002-05. He has held visiting positions at Princeton, Harvard and Cambridge universities; the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, Germany; and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, among others. 

 Trustees also approved a resolution of appreciation for those who recently have contributed $1 million or more to the university. Friends include the Bob Rohrman family, to support Intercollegiate Athletics; Barbara and the late Wayne Kroemer, to support the Center for Cancer Research; Tamara Morse, to support the College of Education and the School of Mechanical Engineering; Gale Rahmoeller, to support the College of Engineering; and Anonymous, to support the Krannert School of Management and the Lyles School of Civil Engineering. 

Sources: Jay Akridge, akridge@purdue.edu

Amy Noah, anoah@purdue.edu