Ernest (Chip) Blatchley (back row on far left) was named the Lee A. Rieth Professor in Environmental Engineering. Blatchley, who is also a professor of Civil Engineering, came to Purdue in 1988. He is internationally renowned for his scholarship in civil and environmental engineering, especially related to photochemical reactor theory and disinfection byproduct formation and control, with applications in drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment and swimming pool chemistry.

Chad Jafvert (back row next to Chip Blatchley) was named the Lyles Family Professor in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering. Jafvert joined the Purdue faculty in 1991, after spending six years as a researcher at the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia. A professor of Civil Engineering and EEE, he has dedicated his research and scholarship to advance fundamental understanding of water chemistry, including the transformation and fate of hazardous chemicals in the aquatic environment.