The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday, October 4, ratified the appointment of Alina Alexeenko as the Reilly Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Chemical Engineering.

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.