February 2, 2017
Hirst, Kannan and Pastakia named as Jefferson Science Fellows
Three Purdue faculty members have been selected as
Jefferson Science Fellows. Peter Hirst (Horticulture), Karthik Kannan
(Management) and Sonak Pastakia (Pharmacy) have been named to the
2017-18 class of Jefferson Science Fellows, an initiative of the Office
of Science and Technology Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State. The
program is administered by the National Academies of Science,
Engineering and Medicine with the goal of engaging the academic
community in providing science and technology advice in the process of
formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
The JSF program was established in 2003 to further
build capacity for science, technology and engineering expertise within
the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International
Development. The JSF program is supported through a partnership between
the U.S. academic community, professional scientific societies, the U.S.
Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID).
Peter Hirst is a professor of horticulture at Purdue,
where he has served on the faculty since 1997. His research focuses on
the physiology, genetics and management of fruit trees, particularly the
apple. In recent years, his research has concentrated on understanding
and manipulating flowering initiation and on fruit development. His
other areas of emphasis include the application of robotics and sensing
technologies to fruit orchards and the development of predictive
computer models of growth and fruiting for educational and research
applications. In his position as a state extension specialist, Hirst
translates research data into strategies that growers can apply. He is a
guest professor at the Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University
in China and has communicated research results and recommendations to
scientists and growers in many countries. He also has been involved in
addressing capacity building and food security in both Africa and Asia.
Karthik Kannan is a professor in Purdue’s Krannert
School of Management. He has served the academic director for MBA
programs, academic co-director for the MS in Business Analytics and
Information Management program and co-director of the Business
Information and Analytics Center. Kannan studies how different aspects
of information technology may be used to exploit human instincts and
biases in order to nudge or manipulate behavior. He has applied related
ideas in pricing using auctions of information goods, pricing of data
networks and the economics of information security. His papers have been
accepted in several leading conferences and journals in the information
systems area. He is a member of AIS and INFORMS. He is also a CERIAS
Fellow and Krannert’s Faculty Fellow.
Sonak Pastakia serves as an associate professor at
Purdue and since 2007 has been spending most of his time each year on
site in Kenya. In Kenya, he has implemented a wide variety of programs,
including a rural diabetes care program that currently serves over 8,000
patients, a portable care system linked to microfinance groups that
provide chronic disease management services, a pharmacy distribution
system which provides antiretroviral medications to over 150,000
HIV-infected patients, a large multi-country gestational diabetes study
in low- and middle-income country settings and an anticoagulation
monitoring program with a focus on rheumatic heart disease. He teaches
in diverse faculty positions at North American and Kenyan universities.
He also has ongoing research and care efforts focused on diabetes and
population health in India. Pastakia is interested in the design and
implementation of community health delivery models which combine
economic support, agricultural assistance and comprehensive health care
into one integrated delivery system.
To date, the JSF program has named 141 Fellows from
U.S. institutions of higher learning. Including this year, Purdue has
had nine faculty named as Jefferson Fellows, more than any other
institution. Previous Jefferson Fellows from Purdue were Melba Crawford,
Alexander King (no longer at Purdue), Suresh Garimella, Jay Gore,
Charles Santerre and Barrett S. Caldwell.
Writer: Kelsey Schnieders, kschnied@purdue.edu