September 24, 2004
Trustees award 5 designated professorships, 1 posthumous degree
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees today (Friday, Sept. 24) approved the appointment of five designated professorships and one posthumous undergraduate degree, a change in a degree program and name changes for three departments.
The board also ratified previously announced appointments of the vice provost for engagement and executive vice president and treasurer.
The board approved the appointments of the following professors: Rakesh Agrawal as the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Jay Akridge as the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, Nicholas Giordano as a distinguished professor, Kathleen C. Howell as Hsu Lo Professor of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, and R. Byron Pipes as the John L. Bray Distinguished Professor of Engineering.
"These scholars are among the very best in their fields," said Purdue Provost Sally Mason. "Not only do they offer world-class expertise in their areas, they also are leaders who are forming the foundation for our goal of preeminence. Our ability to keep and attract this talent, in turn, is based on the support of Purdue alumni and friends who have invested their gifts in these positions."
Purdue's strategic plan, approved in 2001, called for increasing the number of designated professorships. Since then, the number has grown about 25 percent. Purdue now has 101 designated professors.
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Agrawal's current research interest is in energy production issues, especially from renewable resources such as solar energy. He joined Purdue this fall semester following a career in industry that included 24 years at Air Products and Chemicals Inc., in Allentown, Pa., the largest hydrogen supplier in the world. Previously, he has focused on basic and applied research in gas separations, process development, gas liquefication processes, cryogenics and thermodynamics.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he served on the National Research Council (NRC) panel that issued a recent report called "The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers and R&D Needs." He is currently a member of the NRC panel on fuel cell research.
He holds 116 U.S. patents and more than 500 non-U.S. patents. His patented ideas have been applied to nearly 100 operating plants with total capital expenditures for these plants in excess of $1 billion.
Agrawal earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, his master's degree in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware and his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Akridge directs Purdue's Center for Food and Agricultural Business and an award-winning distance-learning graduate program in food and agribusiness management. The center conducts more than 100 days of educational programming annually, attracting food and agribusiness managers to Purdue from around the world. Akridge has worked extensively with agribusiness firms, focusing his research on management and marketing issues, especially the buying behavior of commercial farmers. He has attracted more than $1 million in outside funding to support his research.
Akridge has won numerous teaching awards, including honors from the School of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture and American Agricultural Economics Association. He earned the university's Charles B. Murphy Award for undergraduate teaching in 1996.
Akridge received his bachelor's degree in agriculture and business administration from Murray State University and his master's and doctoral degrees in agricultural economics from Purdue, joining its faculty in 1986.
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Giordano has been teaching in the Department of Physics at Purdue since 1979 and served three years as an assistant dean of Purdue's School of Science.
He has an international reputation for his work in the field of mesoscopic physics, a branch of the general field of nanoscience. Mesoscopic physics includes the study of electrical effects in some of the tiniest pieces of matter that humans have worked with yet – materials so small that their sizes are most conveniently measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. At that scale, the physical forces governing everyday objects in the human-sized world are joined by quantum forces that govern behavior of atoms.
His research focuses on the properties of metallic nanostructures, the behavior of liquids in nanoscale systems, noise and fluctuations in condensed matter systems, musical acoustics and the physics of the piano.
Giordano has received numerous awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, American Physical Society Fellowship and the U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Education Award. From Purdue, he earned the Charles B. Murphy Award for outstanding teaching and Herbert Newby McCoy Award, which is presented annually to the student or faculty member who made the greatest contribution of the year to science. He also is a fellow of the Purdue Teaching Academy.
Giordano graduated with honors from Purdue with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1973, after which he earned his doctorate in physics from Yale University. He remained at Yale as an instructor and then assistant professor until 1979, when he joined Purdue's faculty.
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Howell has been teaching aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue since 1982. She is an expert on spacecraft navigation and orbital mechanics and the motion of man-made objects in space. She has designed innovative trajectories for spacecraft that have enabled some space missions and has developed techniques that help reduce the cost in fuel and design time for planetary missions with spaceships in orbits near points in the solar system where satellites can be safely placed to study the sun and facilitate communication with astronauts and vehicles on the dark side of the moon.
She is a member of the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Society for Engineering Education, Sigma Gamma Tau and Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society.
She has been a five-time recipient of the E.F. Bruhn Teaching Award from Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics and received the Purdue College of Engineering's A.A. Potter Best Teacher in Engineering Award. Howell has won numerous awards from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Presidential Young Investigator Award, Dow Outstanding Young Faculty Award from the Illinois-Indiana section of the American Society for Engineering Education, and the New Engineering Educator Excellence Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. She is listed in Purdue's Book of Great Teachers, was named an American Astronautical Society Fellow and one of the 50 most important women in science by Discover Magazine in 2002.
Howell earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University and a master's and doctorate in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford University.
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Pipes joined Purdue this semester after serving as the Goodyear Professor of Polymer Engineering at the University of Akron since 2001. In his new position, he has faculty appointments in materials engineering, chemical engineering, and aeronautics and astronautics.
A member of the U.S. and Swedish National Academies of Engineering, Pipes is a pioneer in the field of composite materials processing and analysis. He is currently working on research in the application of nanotechnology to engineering disciplines including aerospace, composite materials and polymer science and engineering. He has active programs in the study of the advanced manufacturing science for composite materials. He also is engaged in the development of Internet-based collaborative research involving scientific instruments shared by research groups located in academic, corporate and government scientific centers worldwide.
He was president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 1993-1998 and the provost, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware from 1985-1993.
He earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, a master's degree in structural mechanics from Princeton University and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.
The board also ratified two previously announced appointments:
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• Victor Lechtenberg, former dean of the School of Agriculture, is now vice provost for engagement. Lechtenberg will lead Purdue's effort to support economic development, education and quality of life in Indiana.
• Morgan R. Olsen, vice president for business and finance at Southern Methodist University, is Purdue's new executive vice president and treasurer. Olsen is responsible for all university fiscal matters and physical facilities.
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The board also voted to award an associate of science degree posthumously to Craig Boshart, of Valparaiso, Ind. He was a student at Purdue North Central when he died on July 21. He had completed 88 credit hours and was lacking 14 credit hours toward his degree requirement at the time of his death.
The board voted to change the associate of science degree in nursing program at Purdue North Central to a bachelor of science degree in nursing next fall.
The board also approved the following department name changes: Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences will be the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences (West Lafayette); Department of Manufacturing Technology will be the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Technology (Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne); and the Department of Modern Foreign Languages will be the Department of International Language and Culture (IPFW).
Writer: Reni Winter, (765) 496-3133, rwinter@purdue.edu
Sources: Rakesh Agrawal, (765) agrawalr@purdue.edu
Jay Akridge, (765) 494-4327, akridge@purdue.edu
Nicholas Giordano, (765) 494-6418, giordano@purdue.edu
Kathleen C. Howell, (765) 494-5786, kathleen.c.howell.1@purdue.edu
Victor Lechtenberg, (765) 494-9095, vll@purdue.edu
Morgan R. Olsen, mrolsen@purdue.edu
Sally Mason, (765) 494-9709
R. Byron Pipes, (765) 494-5767, bpipes@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Related Web site:
Purdue Office of the Provost
Related releases:
Lechtenberg appointed Purdue's vice provost for engagement
Purdue names new executive vice president and treasurer
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