Relentlessly smiling Boilermaker wins 2022 Tyler Trent Award

Eric MagallanesPurdue University photo/John Underwood

Eric Magallanes, a senior in the College of Health and Human Sciences, is the 2022 recipient of the Tyler Trent Courage and Resilience Award. Created in honor of Tyler Trent, who inspired the nation during his courageous battle with bone cancer, this scholarship is awarded to undergraduate students on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus who have encountered serious physical — or similarly daunting — adversity in their pursuit of higher education. Honoring Trent’s legacy, Magallanes kept smiling and helping others even when oral cancer threatened to derail his dreams of becoming a dentist. Back on campus after being declared in remission, Magallanes can often be found in a lab, working toward dental school in the School of Health Sciences‘ pre-dentistry concentration within the biomedical health sciences major.

Read his remarkable story.