Trailblazers in Engineering Celebration Dinner

Wednesday, July 29

Welcome and Purpose

  • Thank you, Dave. Good evening, everyone — and welcome to tonight’s Trailblazers in Engineering Celebration Dinner.

  • On behalf of Purdue Engineering, thank you for being here as we close this year’s program.

  • Tonight we celebrate an exceptional group of scholars.

  • Tonight is also a chance for you to reflect on what you have learned and to look ahead to your futures as researchers, educators, and leaders.

Celebrating the Fellows

  • To the 23 Fellows in this year’s cohort: congratulations.

  • You represent extraordinary promise across a wide variety of disciplines, institutions, and backgrounds.

  • You were selected to participate in this program both for your outstanding scholarship to date and for your potential to help shape the future of engineering.

History of Trailblazers

  • Trailblazers began in 2020. That year has special significance for me…

  • We saw a need for a program like this. I remember well the work to define and launch the program, so it’s nice to be back and see how far it has come.

  • Including this year's class, more than 220 Fellows have completed Trailblazers. Many are now faculty members, many are postdoctoral scholars at outstanding institutions, others are making important contributions in industry, and some are still completing their PhDs. That's exactly what we hoped this program would accomplish.

Why Trailblazers Matters

  • Trailblazers exists because we believe that preparing future faculty is one of the most powerful ways to strengthen the engineering profession.

Many Ways to Make an Impact

  • A PhD equips you for success in many different careers: national laboratories, industry research and development, startups, government agencies, policy, entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, public service, and, of course, academia.

  • Our hope is that Trailblazers gives you practical tools, a stronger network, and a clearer sense of where your talents can do the most good.

Personal Reflection on my Path to Academia & Faculty Life

When Dave asked me to speak tonight, I thought about what advice I could offer young people preparing for academic careers. I finally realized there isn't one piece of advice. Instead, there is one observation from nearly fifty years of professional life that I can pass along: your careers will be shaped by a series of forks in the road. Looking back, I can identify four that changed my life.

Before I begin, I want to mention a poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” … 

People often remember only the last line of Frost's poem:

'I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.'

But they forget that earlier in the poem Frost tells us the two roads were actually about equally worn. Looking back, we often create a story that our choices were obvious. They weren't.

  • After earning my BS and MS, I spent several years in industry. Eventually I was offered a very nice promotion to head semiconductor manufacturing. But I had always thought that some day, I would like to earn a PhD.

  • So that was my first fork in the road. It caused my parents some concern, but turned down the promotion and returned to school to earn my PhD, and that “made all the difference” as Robert Frost said, but…if I had chosen that other road…

  • So I came to Purdue to earn my PhD with the plan to go right back into industry. When I was finishing and had a couple job offers, an unexpected TT opportunity came up. So that was a second fork in the road, and choosing to become an academic “made all the difference” again. But if I had gone back to industry with my PhD, I suspect that I’d be saying that was the decision that “made all the difference.”

  • Now, as a young professor you’ll get advice, and you should listen to it all, but you have to decide what makes sense for you.

  • Many young faculty get the idea that teaching is something that steals time from research, but teaching, research, and engagement are not three different jobs – they are three aspects of something larger – the mission of a land grant university.

In my case:

  • Teaching sharpened my thinking.

  • Writing a textbook made me a better researcher.

  • Research made me a better teacher.

  • Students in class generated new ideas for research.

  • When you can put is all together — teaching, research, and engagement too, it’s very powerful.

  • As a young faculty member, I was advised to focus on writing journal articles — that writing a book was not a good use of my time, but writing that book forced me to think deeply and explain difficult ideas simply.

  • The best researchers aren't simply the smartest people in the room. They're often the people who understand a subject deeply enough to explain it clearly.

  • That book may not have helped me earn tenure, but I ended up winning a major national award for young authors with the first edition, and the 2nd Edition became the standard text in my field. Sometimes the advice you get isn't the advice that's right for you.

  • Now, the first 10 years or so of your career are about learning how to teach well while building a strong team of students working in a strong research program with the funding needed to support that. The immediate goals are clear — earn tenure and be promoted, and then to make full professor. I remember what I felt when I was promoted to full professor. It was “Great, now what do I do for the next 30 years?”

  • Well, I thought: “Academic administration might be a path for me.” I was lucky that the dean had a practice of bringing young full professors into his office for three-year rotations, and I had an opportunity to do that. If you get such an opportunity, I recommend that you take it. Even if you decide that academic administration is not for you, it’s a good experience…

  • My third fork in the road was when I decided that I was meant to be a professor and spent the next 30 years focusing on what a former dean called “the best job on campus”.

  • I've spent my career thinking about problems that interested me, working with remarkable students, collaborating with brilliant colleagues here and around the world, and occasionally discovering something genuinely new that has had impact outside academia. That's an extraordinary privilege. Being a professor is not really a job, it’s a calling. I’ve been very lucky.

  • So after 40 years of doing “the best job on campus” I came to my fourth fork in the road. I was asked to serve as Acting Dean of Engineering, and at that point in my career, it made sense. It was a way to use those 40 years of experience to help move the College ahead in a different way. I’ve spent the last 6 years now in a variety of academic leadership positions in the College and the University, and that has been an amazing experience.

  • If there is one piece of advice I would leave you with tonight, it's this:

    • Over the coming years, each of you will come to forks in the road. When a fork in the road appears, don't look for the safe path. Look for the path that will help you make your greatest contribution. Your career won't be defined by finding the one perfect path. It will be defined by what you do while you're on the path you’ve chosen.

  • So congratulations on completing Trailblazers. Whether you spend your career at a university, in industry, in a national laboratory, or by starting your own company, remember why we do this work.

    • Research papers matter. Grants matter. Tenure matters. But long after people have forgotten your citation count, they'll remember the students you mentored, the colleagues you encouraged, and the lives your work improved.

  • Never lose sight of the people on the other side of your equations.

​Gratitude and Takeaway

  • Before I close, I want to thank our faculty, speakers, panelists, organizers, and staff: thank you for investing your hard work and time to make this experience special.

  • To the Fellows: I hope you leave Purdue with confidence, new colleagues, and with a renewed sense of what is possible.

  • As you move forward, remember the conversations from this week — and remember that your work, your questions, and your presence in engineering matter.

Closing

  • Congratulations, thank you for bringing your talents to Purdue, and we look forward to following you on the many different roads that each of you will follow.

  • With that, Dave, back to you.