Purdue trustees ratify faculty positions; approve resolutions of appreciation, naming of the School of Industrial Engineering

INDIANAPOLIS — The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (Oct. 4) ratified faculty appointments and approved resolutions of appreciation and the naming of the School of Industrial Engineering.

The newly ratified faculty appointments are:

• Ramaswamy Subramanian as the Gerald and Edna Mann Director of the Bindley Bioscience Center
• Alina Alexeenko as the Reilly Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Chemical Engineering
• Gesualdo Scutari as the Pedro and Barbara Granadillo Professor in Industrial Engineering
• Juan Wachs as the James H. and Barbara H. Greene Professor in Industrial Engineering
• Satish Ukkusuri as the Hubert and Audrey Kleasen Professor in Civil Engineering
• Jeffrey Reuer as the Blake Family Endowed Chair in Strategic Management and Governance

Subramanian joined Purdue’s faculty in 2019 as director of the Bindley Bioscience Center and professor of biological sciences and biomedical engineering. His research interests lie in macromolecular structure and function using diffraction and cryo-EM focused on new therapeutic approaches to bacterial infection and developmental diseases of the retina. Previously, Subramanian helped create a structural biology program at the University of Iowa and was founding dean of the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, India. Additionally, he co-founded and served as the first CEO of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms, a life sciences innovation hub for academia, industry and startup companies. As a business entrepreneur, Subramanian has co-founded companies that include UltraNutri and Ignite Life Science Foundation. He is a member of the Commission on Synchrotron Radiation of the International Union of Crystallography, the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a fellow of the Electron Microscope Society of India. Subramanian’s honors and awards include being named the University of Iowa Foundation’s Innovator of the Year.

Alexeenko joined Purdue’s faculty in 2006 as a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, with a joint appointment in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. She served as associate dean of undergraduate education in the College of Engineering from 2019-24. Her research encompasses computational and experimental rarefied gas dynamics, heat and mass transfer engineering in application to in-space propulsion, vacuum technology and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Alexeenko has authored over 220 journal articles and conference papers and is a co-inventor of 10 patents. Since 2014 she has served as a founding co-director of the Advanced Lyophilization Technology Hub (LyoHUB), an industry-university consortium with a mission to advance the science and technology of pharmaceutical lyophilization. Alexeenko is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and chaired its Thermophysics Technical Committee. She also is a member of the International Advisory Committee for the Rarefied Gas Dynamics Symposium. Her honors and awards include Purdue’s Dean H.T. Yang Leadership in Service Award, being named to the Purdue Innovator Hall of Fame, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Purdue’s C.T. Sun School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Excellence in Research Award, being named a University Faculty Scholar and more.

Scutari joined Purdue’s industrial engineering faculty in 2015. He currently serves as a professor of both industrial engineering and electrical and computer engineering. His research focuses on optimization theory, specializing in nonconvex distributed optimization and game-theoretical models with applications in data science. His recent research is paving the way to developing provable artificial intelligence through cutting-edge optimization algorithms that address the challenges of processing high-dimensional data across diverse networks, ensuring privacy and reducing computational burdens. Scutari has been scientific director for big-data analytics at Discovery Park District at Purdue’s Cyber Center and the thrust leader on optimization at Purdue’s Center for Resilient Infrastructures, Systems and Processes. He is a fellow of IEEE and of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association. Scutari also has served as associate editor and later as senior associate editor of the journal IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, as well as associate editor of IEEE Signal Processing Letters. He currently serves as associate editor of the SIAM Journal on Optimization. Scutari is a University Faculty Scholar and has received several other awards and honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Anna Maria Molteni Award for Mathematics and Physics (Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation), the IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award, and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award. He also serves as one of five (worldwide) IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturers (2023-24).

Wachs came to Purdue in 2009. He is a professor and faculty scholar in the School of Industrial Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering (by courtesy), and he is an adjunct associate professor of surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Wachs previously served at the National Science Foundation as a program director for robotics and AI programs at the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. He currently serves as director of the Intelligent Systems and Assistive Technologies Lab at Purdue and is affiliated with the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. Wachs is a senior member of IEEE and associate editor of the journals IEEE Transactions in Human-Machine Systems and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. He served on several additional editorial boards in previous years. His honors and awards include being named a University Faculty Scholar, receiving the Air Force Young Investigator Award and the James A. and Sharon M. Tompkins Rising Star Associate Professorship, and more. He was a 2015 Helmsley Senior Scientist Fellow and a 2016 Fulbright U.S. Scholar.

Ukkusuri joined Purdue in 2009 as an associate professor in the Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering. His research focuses on developing interdisciplinary solutions to transportation systems, with current interests in AI-based transportation solutions, resilience of interdependent networks, transportation cybersecurity, connected and autonomous traffic systems, and smart logistics. Ukkusuri is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a University Faculty Scholar, a Fulbright Fellow and a selectee of the National Academy of Engineering JAFOE conference. He has received multiple Purdue Seed for Success Acorn Awards, as well as a College of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award. Ukkusuri has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications and transportation-specific journals. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Data Science for Transportation and co-editor-in-chief of the ACM Journal of Autonomous Transportation.

Reuer recently joined Purdue as a professor of strategic management. He previously served at the business school INSEAD and held tenured positions at Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina and the University of Colorado. His research examines the impact of uncertainty on strategic decisions and uses organizational economics to investigate firms’ external corporate development activities (e.g., R&D partnerships, international joint ventures, acquisitions). Reuer has led executive training sessions for various startups, nonprofits, consultancies and multinationals. He is dean of the fellows of the Strategic Management Society and has served as chair of the Academy of Management’s Strategic Management Division and chief grants officer of the Strategy Research Foundation. Additionally, he has served as an associate, consulting or guest editor of eight academic journals. He has received several MBA teaching awards and is a recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair Award and a Silver Medal from the Journal of International Business Studies for lifetime scholarly contributions.

In other action, trustees approved resolutions of appreciation for friends of the university who recently contributed $1 million or more to Purdue. Those are:

• Sandra Postel, to support the College of Engineering
• David and Beth Bergeron, to support the Office of the President
• Edwardson Family Foundation, to support the School of Industrial Engineering
• Thomas and Jane (dec. 2021) Schmidt, to support the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research and the School of Industrial Engineering
• An anonymous gift, to support the School of Nursing
• An anonymous gift, to support the College of Engineering

In recognition, trustees further approved naming the School of Industrial Engineering to the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering. Former Purdue Trustee John A. Edwardson Jr. received his bachelor’s degree from the School of Industrial Engineering in 1971 and an honorary doctorate from the College of Engineering in 2006. This gift will fund the Edwardson Scholars Program endowment for undergraduate scholarships, the Leimkuhler Fellows Endowment (graduate scholarships) honoring the school’s former head, a matching funds initiative to promote eight new faculty endowments and 20 new graduate student fellowship endowments, as well as discretionary funding for the school’s head.

Trustees also approved an increased authorization for the Purdue Airport terminal construction project approved Aug. 4, 2023. Due to market conditions, the estimated total cost increased from $11.8 million to $12.75 million, and additional funds for the project will come from a combination of gift funds and auxiliary funds — other. The project is scheduled to be completed in September 2025.

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