MSE's Erk appointed assistant dean for First-Year Engineering Program
Already in this new academic year, Kendra Erk has attended a handful of ENGR 13100 lectures.
What Erk has witnessed — “students’ raw talent and creativity in real time” — only solidified her recent choice.
The Purdue alum and professor in the School of Materials Engineering accepted the appointment as assistant dean for the First-Year Engineering (FYE) Program in Purdue University’s College of Engineering.
In the new role, effective Aug. 1, 2025, Erk will work closely with all schools, tenure-track faculty, lecturers and support staff within first-year engineering programs to ensure a cohesive, continuously improving efficient program across all first-year pathways in West Lafayette.
“The students’ energy and enthusiasm for learning is infectious and being able to interface with them during their first year at Purdue is a special opportunity,” said Erk, who holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering. “I am excited to work with and learn from our dedicated team of FYE support staff, instructors, graduate assistants and undergraduate peer teachers who have created an amazing learning environment year after year for nearly 3,000 students.”
Erk, who earned a bachelor’s in materials engineering in 2006, said first-year engineering courses were a major turning point and templated the successes she had at Purdue. FYE taught valuable new ways to learn and use information, in addition to providing exposure to engineering design, programming and statistics. Team-based projects exposed strengths and weaknesses, and she was continuously motivated by challenges as a first-year student.
“It transformed me into a more persistent and resilient person,” Erk said.
In addition to course-related goals, another major goal of the FYE Program is to introduce students to the 17 engineering majors in West Lafayette. Erk is eager to enhance the Engineering Your Major process — the process by which students identify which major would be a good fit — by strengthening the connections between curriculum, advisors and undergraduate chairs and faculty in engineering schools.
There certainly will be plenty of students exploring in Year 1.
Though enrollment numbers aren’t official yet, the College of Engineering welcomed at least 2,600 first-year engineering students in West Lafayette in Fall 2025 — a smaller class than last academic year but more selective.
“I’m motivated by the impact that Purdue engineering alumni make on the world, and my new role working with FYE gives me an opportunity to influence the educational trajectory of all the engineering students regardless of their specific major and career directions,” Erk said. “This is in great contrast to the impacts I’m able to make with my research group and graduate students or even the MSE courses I teach each semester.”
A Purdue engineering faculty member since 2012, Erk has grown to love the discovery and learning that take place in classrooms and lab spaces.
She was recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in 2015; honored with the Charles B. Murphy Award, the university’s highest undergraduate teaching honor, in 2024; and has collaborated with colleagues in education and science through NSF Division of Undergraduate Education projects.
Erk’s research areas include characterization of the mechanical properties and deformation responses of soft materials and complex fluids with applications in personal care, environmental remediation and sustainable infrastructure.
“It is a great honor to now be involved in enhancing the technical and professional depth and breadth of our first-year engineering programs,” Erk said.