Trustees honor 4 professors, OK Calumet degree programs

Trustees also approved four new degree programs in engineering at the Calumet campus.

Steven Abel was named the Bucke Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Melba Crawford is the Chair of Excellence in Earth Observation, Deborah Knapp is the McCall Professor of Veterinary Medicine and Steven J. Walter is the first University Distinguished Professor of Systems Engineering and director of the Center of Excellence in Systems Engineering at IPFW. These appointments bring the number of designated professors at Purdue to 122.

"These four professors have been widely recognized as top achievers in their field, so it's fitting that they receive this honor from their peers here at Purdue," said Provost Sally Mason. "They have contributed critical research in diverse areas such as the drug industry, the space program, disaster control and health care for animals and humans and will help keep Purdue in the forefront of all those fields."

Designated professors are individuals whose achievements in scholarship or research have been internationally recognized or who have made a unique contribution to the university through scholarship, research, teaching or leadership functions.

Steven Abel

Abel is head of pharmacy practice in the School of Pharmacy and has been on the faculty at Purdue since 1996. Prior to coming to Purdue, he was the assistant director of pharmacy for clinical and educational services for 17 years at Indiana University Medical Center, now Clarian Health Partners.

Abel's research focuses on development, implementation and evaluation of contemporary pharmacy services, assessing the contribution of student pharmacists to practice sites, and medication safety. Through his position at Purdue, he also is a member of the pharmacy management team for Wishard Health Services, where his emphasis is on compliance with regulatory standards and patient safety.

During his 10 years at Purdue, he has developed and implemented a number of residency and fellowship programs in conjunction with partners that include Eli Lilly & Co., Concentrics Research, the Food and Drug Administration, Osco-Albertson's, St. Joseph Medical Center in South Bend, Ind., and Mathes Pharmacy in New Albany, Ind. Five fellowships with the Department of Pharmacy Practice are the only such programs in the state of Indiana.

Abel has published more than 110 scientific and professional articles and has given more than 300 research and invited presentations at national and international pharmacy meetings. He has a history of active service in various pharmaceutical organizations, including the Indiana Pharmacists Alliance, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, American College of Clinical Pharmacists and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. In 1995 he was selected as a Fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

He received a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and a doctorate (Pharm.D.) from Purdue in 1976 and 1978, respectively.

Abel's professorship is named in honor of two longtime Purdue benefactors, William S. Bucke, who was president of Lafayette Pharmacal Co., and his wife Edith C. Bucke, both deceased. Bucke employed Purdue students in his business to help them through school, and one of their previous gifts furnished the outpatient pharmacy in the Heine Pharmacy Building.

Melba Crawford

Crawford holds a joint appointment in the agronomy and civil engineering departments, and serves as director of the Laboratory of Applications in Remote Sensing.

She came to Purdue early this year from Washington, D.C., where she served as a Jefferson Science Fellow with the U.S. Department of State where she played a critical role in assessing the impact of the tsunami, Pakistani earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. She was assigned to the Bureau of International Organizations to coordinate science sector activities within the U.S. National Commission to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and served as an adviser to the U.S. ambassador. At the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, she focused on developing strategic capability for the use of geospatial and remote sensing image technologies for response to complex humanitarian emergencies.

Prior to those appointments, she was a distinguished professor in the graduate program in operations research at the University of Texas, Austin, where she also founded an interdisciplinary research and applications development program in space-based and airborne remote sensing at the Center for Space Research.

Crawford is an internationally known scholar for her research in the theory and application of satellite remote sensing. She is a pioneer in the development of methods for analysis of data from satellites. She applies these methods to various aspects of earth observation for mapping land use and land cover changes.

Crawford's professional activities include service to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, where she is an elected member of the administrative board. She previously served as education director, vice president for professional activities and is currently vice president for meetings and symposia.

Crawford also served as a member of the NASA Earth System Science and Applications Advisory Committee and was a member of the NASA EO-1 science validation team for the Advanced Land Imager and Hyperion, which received a NASA Outstanding Service Award.

She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois in 1970 and 1973, respectively, and her doctorate in systems engineering from Ohio State University in 1981.

Deborah Knapp

Knapp is professor of veterinary clinical sciences, co-director of the Purdue Comparative Oncology Program and chief of the clinical oncology section in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine.

A member of the Purdue faculty since 1990, Knapp's research focuses on urinary bladder cancer, which includes studies in the laboratory, in animals with bladder cancer and the translation of this work into human clinical trials performed by collaborating physicians.

She is board certified with an oncology specialty by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association for Cancer Research.

Among Knapp's honors are Purdue University Faculty Scholar for Outstanding Academic Distinction, Pfizer Animal Health Award for Research Excellence and Raymond E. Plue Outstanding Teacher Award.

She received her bachelor's degree in zoology from North Carolina State University in 1979 and her doctorate in veterinary medicine in 1983 from Auburn University. She earned a master's degree in veterinary medicine in 1988 and conducted postdoctoral research in cancer pharmacology from 1988-90, all at Purdue.

Her professorship is named for Delores L. McCall, who is an independent oil and gas investor in Midland, Texas. McCall first came into contact with Purdue through her veterinarian, Janet Houghton, of Huntington, Ind., who was an alumna of the School of Veterinary Medicine. McCall also gave the school a gift that helped build a $1.4 million radiation facility that was completed in December.

Steven J. Walter

Walter will start his position on May 22 as the first director of the Center of Excellence in Systems Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Systems Engineering at IPFW.

From 1990 to 2001, Walter was a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology where he developed microwave, millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave remote-sensing systems.

His research and development activities have contributed to a number of systems with applications to climate change, weather forecasting, deep space communications and national security. Walter was a key member of the conceptual design and proposal team for the cloud-profiling radar mission, CloudSat, which is scheduled for launch on April 20.

His most recent position was with Northrup Grumman Corp., where he served in a variety of systems engineering and program management roles and ultimately managed the space sensors technology program in Azusa, Calif.

Walter received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Maryland in 1981. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Colorado in 1986 and 1990, respectively.

Trustees also approved three new bachelor's degree programs at Purdue Calumet in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer engineering to take the place of the more general bachelor of science program in engineering.

"The need for specialization in engineering has occurred as the discipline has become more specialized, as the quality of the Calumet campus faculty has grown and as the needs of northwest Indiana have become more demanding," Mason said.

Also approved was the creation of a bachelor's degree program in civil engineering. The program will serve to address transportation infrastructure and major environmental issues.

Writer: Maggie Morris, (765) 494-2432, maggiemorris@purdue.edu

Sources: Sally Mason, (765) 494-9709, sfmason@purdue.edu

Steven Abel, (317) 613-2315, sabel@iupui.edu

Melba Crawford, (765) 496-9355, mcrawford@purdue.edu

Deborah Knapp, (765) 494-1107, knappd@purdue.edu

Steven Walter, through Jane Markin at IPFW, (260) 481-4101, markinj@ipfw.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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