AAE’s Cesar receives NIU’s highest alumni honor in journalism
Alan Cesar, lead communications professional in the Purdue School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, received Northern Illinois University (NIU)’s 2025 Donald R. Grubb Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award at a banquet held April 11. The award, given annually to one alumnus, is named in honor of Grubb who started the journalism department at NIU in 1959 and founded the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association.
In announcing the award, David Gunkel, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor at NIU, spoke to Cesar’s career highlighting how a journalism degree provides a strong foundation for success in communications beyond traditional reporting.
“Your ability to communicate complex, cutting-edge research for the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University demonstrates the versatility of a journalism education,” he said.
Cesar’s career path certainly echoes this versatility that mirrors his circuitous route to his current role at Purdue.
‘The long and winding road’—a metaphor
The Brazil native was first taken with flight seeing crop dusters over the fields on his family’s sugar cane farm. On a visit to family in the U.S., he was invited to the cockpit of the 747-400. “I met the pilots and saw the overwhelming array of levers and dials,” he said. “It was also the Space Shuttle era, so once I moved to the U.S. and started seeing more of those on TV, I became fascinated by rockets and space.”
But Cesar also became obsessed with cars, scouring the classified ads for cars long before he could drive. “I read Car and Driver magazine cover to cover,” he said.
Like many college students, he changed his major several times before turning a hobby in photography into a major at McHenry County College, close to his home. After moving on to NIU, he continued toward a BFA but after a few semesters, Cesar decided to follow his father’s path and changed his major to mechanical engineering.
“But between MCC and NIU, I'd been in college for four years at that point,” Cesar said. “I was looking at another four years of school to get my bachelor’s degree. But that meant I had room for extra course load, so I explored other majors and minors, including German, Spanish and computer science before changing majors again.” Two additional areas of study led to minors in philosophy and fine art.
When he saw a job opening on the copy desk at the Northern Star, the student newspaper, his career path became clearer.
“It was at the Star that I fell in love with the process of producing a publication,” Cesar said. “As a copy editor, I got to see the student-written stories alongside those provided by AP, and my goal was to refine our stories, so they felt more like the work written by real news professionals.”
Switching majors yet again to journalism, a degree that combined his love of news and photography, he found work as a technical writer after graduation – until he landed a job at Grassroots Motorsports magazine. He learned to go beyond asking race car owners the normal questions about details of their cars.
“At some point the technical details get tired,” he said, “so I began pushing my boundaries, asking people more about their personal journeys and their connections to their cars. One particular story stands out.
The winding road leads to Purdue
After moving on from Grassroots Motorsports, Cesar was hired at Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University, a job that fed his passion for aviation and aerospace, he said. An example is chronicled in a story about the perilous work of alumni evacuating Kabul, Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.
That love led him in 2022 to the “Cradle of Astronauts,” Purdue University, where his diverse skills can be found in setting and executing marketing strategy for the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Describing himself as a “polymath,” he oversees print and web magazine publishing, science and feature writing, photography, web design and social media marketing.
In summing up his feelings about receiving the prestigious award, Cesar gives credit to the talent at NIU and the Northern Star. “I received the award, yes, because of the work and learning that I did on my own after NIU, but the school and the Star gave me the foundation for everything I’ve built upon.”