BME’s Linnes, CE’s Lu named to key Engineering program positions
Effective Jan. 1, 2022, Luna Lu, ACPA Professor of Civil Engineering, will take over as director of OPP. Effective April 1, 2022, Jacqueline Linnes, the Marta E. Gross Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, will assume the directorship in EHP.
“I am excited about the expertise that Drs. Lu and Linnes bring to CoOp and to Engineering Honors,” said Mung Chiang, executive vice president of strategic initiatives and the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering. “I look forward to working with Luna and Jackie to propel Purdue Engineering to the pinnacle of excellence at scale.”
The programming changes come with the planned departure of Eric Nauman, professor of mechanical engineering, basic medical sciences and biomedical engineering, who also serves as the director of EHP and OPP.
Nauman is the director of the Human Injury Research and Regenerative Technologies (HIRRT) Lab. The group explores the development of novel treatment methods for a variety of pathologies, including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, musculoskeletal damage, atherosclerosis and cancer metastasis. He also is the co-founder of Advanced Regenerative Technologies and IFBattery Inc.
Nauman is an inductee into Purdue Research Foundation’s Innovators Hall of Fame, Purdue’s Book of Great Teachers and the Purdue Teaching Academy, and is a recipient of the Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. He and the Purdue Neurotrauma Group received the Bernie Flowers Award for Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football.
“We in Purdue Engineering appreciate the groundbreaking work Professor Nauman has made to reduce head injuries in sports and the countless hours he has devoted to educating incredible Boilermakers,” Chiang said. “His contributions to the Office of Professional Practice and in the Engineering Honors Program have advanced innovative learning at Purdue. He will be missed.”
Lu, who has a courtesy appointment in materials engineering, is the inaugural director of the Joe and Lisa Shetterley Innovation Lab and heads the Sustainable Materials and Renewable Technology (SMART) Lab. There, she leads an interdisciplinary research group that works on novel nanomaterials and devices for energy harvesting and sensing applications. She also is founding director of the Center for Intelligent Infrastructure (CII) at Purdue, where the research areas include four thrusts: sustainability and resiliency; smart sensing technology; autonomy and adaptivity; and artificial intelligence application.
She is the founder and CSO of Wave Logix Inc., a Purdue-based startup developing Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and databases for infrastructure monitoring. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Harold Munson Outstanding Teacher Award and Zimmerman Innovation Award. She was selected as a College of Engineering Entrepreneurial Ambassador and a Purdue University Faculty Scholar.
Linnes leads the Linnes Lab, where the work is driven by the pressing need for real-time detection technologies to prevent, diagnose and better understand the pathogenesis of diseases. She is the co-founder of two companies: OmniVis, which aims to increase the efficiency of infectious disease monitoring and response through rapid and accurate pathogen detection platforms at the point-of-care; and PotaVida, Inc., which lowers the cost of access to safe drinking water in disasters, rural settings and urban slums, and leads biological efficacy tests and user-centered design of solar water purifiers in emerging markets, including Nicaragua, Kenya and Zambia.
She is the recipient of the Moore Inventor Fellowship for her invention that combines highly sensitive nucleic acid amplification with the simplicity and scalability of low-cost paper-based devices. She also earned the Violet Haas Memorial Fellowship.