Appointments, honors and activities

• Faculty and staff honors:

-  Ilana Stonebraker, assistant professor in Purdue Libraries, was elected vice chair/chair-elect of the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of the American Library Association RUSA (Reference and User Services) Division in April. Stonebraker, who works in the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management and Economics and teaches courses in the Purdue Krannert School of Management, will begin her vice chair post July 1. As vice chair, she will coordinate appointments to BRASS’s 16 committees.

- Edward Mikhail, professor emeritus of civil engineering, has been named the 2018 recipient of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s Arthur C. Lundahl-Thomas C. Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his 50 years devoted to supporting the intelligence community. Mikhail was recognized at the GEOINT 2018 Symposium on April 24. Mikhail joined Purdue in 1965 and established what became a leading graduate program in geomatics engineering. Now retired, he mentors younger faculty and Ph.D. students. USGIF is a nonprofit educational foundation dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and developing a community with government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals who develop and apply geospatial intelligence to address national security challenges.

- Willie Reed, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, will be honored with an American Veterinary Epidemiological Society honorary diploma on July 16 at the AVES awards breakfast at the annual meeting of the AVMA in Denver. In 1967, the AVES began awarding one honorary diploma each year to a distinguished veterinary scientist.  The first went to Dr. George Beran in 1967, followed by Dr. Henrik J. Stafseth in 1968. After that year, one or more diplomas were awarded each year until the 1990s, when five became the standard number to be given out in any one year.

- Virginia Booth Womack, director of Purdue’s Minority Engineering Program, and Beth Holloway, the Leah H. Jamieson Director of the Women in Engineering Program, were honored at the Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference. The two were among a small group that received Women of Color History Makers in Diversity honors. The award was established to “honor individuals who have catalyzed changed to help students from underrepresented populations overcome historic barriers,” according to a release from the National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates. “This year’s honor recognized women whose leadership marks a national historic milestone in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within engineering and related fields.”

• Student honors:

- Thirty-five accounting students in Krannert School of Management’s MGMT 590 class logged 1,383 volunteer hours serving 1,115 clients and preparing 2,230 tax returns as part of this year’s United Way Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. Krannert students accounted for more than 95 percent of volunteer hours for the entire program. Thomas Godwin was the facilitating instructor, while current and former students Jordan Szczepanski, Emily Cox and Ilana Leopold served as assistant site coordinators.

-Joshua Pribe, a graduate student studying mechanical engineering, has been selected to participate in the 2018 Australia-Americas Ph.D. Research Internship Program. This program is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training’s Enabling Growth and Innovation Project Fund and is delivered by the Australian Academy of Science. The eight-week program will run from June June 12-Aug. 9. During his time in Australia Pribe will conduct research on creep fatigue crack growth in additive manufactured Nickel-based superalloys under the supervision of Jay Kruzic at the University of New South Wales, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

-Four Purdue mechanical engineering graduate students have received fellowship awards from the National Science Foundation. The program recruits high-potential, early-career scientists and engineers and supports their graduate research training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.  Trevor Bird studies with professor Neera Jain; Kate Clements works in propulsion at Zucrow Labs; Taylor Lee works with Eric Nauman at the Purdue Neurotrauma Group; and Katie Riley is researching bio-inspired fast morphing structures with professor Andres Arrieta.