Purdue trustees honor 3 with designated professorships

The trustees approved Michael Boehlje as the Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, Natalia Dudareva as the Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research and Maribeth Cassidy Schmitt as the Jean Adamson Stanley Faculty Chair in Literacy.

"These three professors are representative of the kind of exemplary scholarship, research and education taking place at Purdue," said Provost Sally Mason. "They are not only leading experts in their fields, but they also have strong records of helping children in our state learn to read, assisting farmers with managing the business side of agriculture and working with companies to improve the smell of flowers, which represents a multibillion dollar industry in the United States."

Designated professorships honor individuals whose academic achievements have been internationally recognized or who have made a unique contribution to the university through scholarship, research, teaching or leadership functions. Purdue now has 130 designated professors.

Michael Boehlje

Boehlje's scholarship focuses on integrating concepts of economics, finance and strategy to solve problems of farm and agribusiness managers. He and his colleagues were among the first to utilize modern business management theories in solving farm management problems. Boehlje has played a leading role in the development of Purdue's agribusiness program, and he is one of the core faculty involved in the executive masters of business administration program. His recent success in obtaining funding for the Purdue Agriculture and Commercialization Center also has sparked a new area of Extension activities at Purdue.

Boehlje has written more than 500 publications, including textbooks on farm management and agricultural finance. He also has served on a number of government agency task forces and commissions including the U. S. Department of Agriculture Committee on Concentration and Consolidation in Agriculture. He was involved in assisting individual farmers, lenders and policy-makers during the farm financial crisis of the early 1980s. He is a fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and also of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association.

He completed his doctorate and master's degrees in agricultural economics at Purdue in 1971 and 1968, respectively. He earned his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in 1965. He also taught at Oklahoma State University, Iowa State University and the University of Minnesota before returning to Purdue in 1992.

Natalia Dudareva

Dudareva, a professor in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, is an expert on the biochemistry and molecular biology of floral volatiles. Her work on floral scent, which is a key component of plant reproductive biology that plays a crucial role in reproductive success, has implications in crop yield as well as in consumer satisfaction with floral products.

She earned her master's degree from Novosibirsk State University in Russia in 1974, and she received two doctorate degrees from the Institute of Biochemistry in Ukraine and the University of Louis Pasteur in France in 1982 and 1995, respectively. She has been at Purdue since 1997, and she was a visiting associate professor at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany.

Her work is often supported by the National Science Foundation and the USDA, as well as by companies seeking to improve floral fragrance through plant breeding and genetics. Dudareva also has a patent on methods and compositions for production of floral scent compounds and two additional patent applications. She was named a University Faculty Scholar in the College of Agriculture in 2006.

Maribeth C. Schmitt

Schmitt, a clinical professor of literacy and language education, is director of the Purdue Literacy Network Project. The project is a nationally and internationally recognized center that provides professional development for teachers to use innovative techniques and conducts research on instructional practices. The center includes Reading Recovery, which is an early literacy intervention for struggling learners. Schmitt is one of only 55 international trainers of teacher-leaders for the Reading Recovery program, which has provided professional development for hundreds of teachers and improved the reading skills of thousands of schoolchildren.

Schmitt, who also is assistant head of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education, earned her doctorate degree from Purdue in 1987 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in 1993 at the University of Illinois Reading Recovery Center. She also received her master's and bachelor's degrees from Purdue in 1983 and 1972, respectively. Before coming to Purdue in 1992, she taught at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. She is past president of the Reading Recovery Council of North America and former editor of an international literacy journal.

Schmitt is the lead author of "Changing Futures: The Influence of Reading Recovery in the United States." In 2003 the Indiana General Assembly passed a resolution to honor Schmitt for her contributions to literacy learning and instructional leadership in Indiana. In her efforts to make Reading Recovery accessible to all children who need it, she spearheaded an initiative that has resulted in nearly $14.5 million in legislative funding for Reading Recovery teacher training in Indiana.

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Sources: Sally Mason, (765) 494-9709, sfmason@purdue.edu

Michael Boehlje, (765) 494-4222, boehljem@purdue.edu

Natalia Dudareva, (765) 494-1325, dudareva@purdue.edu

Maribeth Schmitt, (765) 494-5683, mschmitt@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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