June 6, 2008
Appointments, honors and activities
• Appointments and promotions:— Joseph F. Pekny will become interim head of the School of Industrial Engineering from July 1 through Jan. 4. A search is under way to name a new head of the school. Pekny will continue in his current role as director of the e-Enterprise Center at Discovery Park. He is a professor of chemical engineering with research interest in supply chain management, planning and scheduling systems, pharmaceutical pipeline management, model-based and date-drive management, and real-time decision making.
– Melissa Johnson, assistant director of budget and fiscal planning, has been promoted to director of budget and fiscal planning. Johnson succeeds James David, who will continue to support special projects within business services on a part-time basis. The appointment became effective June 1. As director, Johnson will be responsible for institutional budgetary planning, implementation, management, and controls relating to budget processes and systems.
• Faculty and staff honors:
— University Residences recently won the 2008 Arthur G. Hansen Recognition Award for its relationship with retirees. The award, sponsored by the Purdue University Retirees Association and the Office of the President, was presented June 4 at the university's annual retirement banquet. University Residences received a trophy to be displayed in the department and will be listed on a plaque in the corridor of Purdue Memorial Union. The award also includes $2,500, funded by TIAA-CREF, which can be used to help strengthen the department's ties to its retirees.
— Purdue University plant geneticist Gebisa Ejeta has been appointed a member of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a research organization co-sponsored by the World Bank and three United Nations agencies dedicated to improving human nutrition, health and protecting the environment. Ejeta, an Ethiopian native and member of Purdue's Department of Agronomy faculty since 1984, has developed new sorghum varieties that are resistant to drought and the parasitic weed striga. Sorghum is a food source for both people and livestock. Along with an integrated management system that Ejeta established, the new sorghums have increased crop yield by as much as five times in many areas of Africa where hunger and poverty are endemic.
— Department of Biochemistry professor Sandra Rossie has been named a Fulbright Scholar for this fall. The scholarship program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, will enable her to collaborate on a research project in Russia and teach a workshop for Russian researchers on communicating science in English. Rossi's research focuses on how cells' biochemical responses change when they receive signals from hormones and neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are biochemicals that carry or halt messages between different nerve cells and between nerves and muscles.
• Alumni honors:
— Gary C. Horlacher has been selected one of four new flight directors for NASA. Flight directors have the overall responsibility to manage and carry out shuttle flights and space station expeditions. Horlacher, of Chesterton, Ind., received his bachelor's degree in engineering from Purdue in 1989 and his master's degree in space sciences from the University of Houston Clear Lake in 1995. He has supported 75 space shuttle missions while working intermittently in Mission Control for the space shuttle instrumentation and communications discipline since 1989. In that time he has worked for Rockwell Space Operations Co., the United Space Alliance, Hughes Information Technology Systems and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. NASA hired him in the instrumentation and communications discipline in 2006.
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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