Nrupaja Bhide: Engineering, Policy, and Education in Action

Nrupaja Bhide, originally from Pune, India, is a mechanical engineer with a passion for education and public policy. After earning her BE in Mechanical Engineering and MSc in Public Policy and Human Development in the Netherlands, she returned to India to work with an NGO facilitating educational programs and rural maker spaces. Through these programs, she helped students aged 6–19 design solutions to real-world challenges in their communities.

Attracted by the intersection of engineering, policy, and education, Nrupaja joined Purdue’s Engineering Education PhD program in fall 2020, starting online during the pandemic. “The community’s support during my first semester really helped me feel at home,” she reflects. As a participant in the INSPIRE K-12 and Explorer programs, and a recipient of the Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, she has had opportunities to pursue her research under the guidance of advisor Dr. Jennifer DeBoer, including facilitating ENE’s interactions in Kenya.

Her dissertation explores how local and ancestral knowledge can be integrated into engineering curricula, making lessons more relevant to students’ lives. Nrupaja has twice traveled to Kenya to collaborate with teachers and students at the Tumaini Innovation Center, and the projects range from air purifies and water heaters to support the center to food warmers made from local sustainable materials.

Through her work, she has honed cross-cultural communication and collaboration skills, learning how to align priorities and design creative and practical solutions. Nrupaja's dream to continue impacting education at scale through industry roles focused on playful and impactful learning design, user experience research, or corporate work were realized when she landed a position at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Purdue.

Reflecting on her journey, she notes: “No one in my family has done a PhD before, so this has been both challenging and liberating. I’ve had the freedom to pursue my ideas, share them, and grow intellectually.” She values the close-knit nature of her cohort, where every member comes from unique career paths and celebrates each other’s milestones.