Graduate Student Testimonials

Meet some of our amazing graduate students!

If you are a current Purdue Engineering Graduate Student, submit your profile here to be considered for this feature!

Lexy Arinze — Delta, Nigeria

Engineering Education, Ph.D.
Graduation: May 2027

Lexy Arinze, a first-generation graduate student from Nigeria, earned his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Ibadan before participating in a student abroad program in Spain. Upon returning to Nigeria, he worked as a graduate Engineer at Arup for 1.5 years. He recently obtained his master's degree in Civil Engineering at Purdue University and currently is pursuing his Ph.D. in Engineering Education.

Luca Vaccino — Italy

Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D.

I'm part of RETHi team, a NASA funded institute which designs resilient extra-terrestrial habitats for Moon and Mars. In particular, I'm working on systems integration and transitions between crewed and dormant stages of a mission.

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Vidushi Toshniwal — India

Civil Engineering, Ph.D.

I am working on modeling cyclic behavior of soil, being a major part of foundation for any building they could possibly cause damage to the building due to liquefaction under cyclic loading conditions (Earthquake, etc.). Hence, it is important to develop a cyclic constitutive model for the soil and study its behavior.

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Ankit Kumar — India

Materials Engineering, Ph.D.

Understanding failure mechanisms of aerospace materials due to corrosion. Important: Increasing life-time of aircraft structure along with safety and reliability concern.

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Damilola Lawore — Oyo State, Nigeria

Biomedical Engineering, Ph.D.

Computational biomedicine with an emphasis on identifying microbial metabolites with anti cancer synthetic lethal potential using systems and synthetic biology approach. Developing better therapies for cancer is important as cancer mortality is still on the rise.

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Ismail Olaniyi — Lagos, Nigeria

Civil Engineering (Geomatics), Ph.D.

My research focuses on using remote sensing technologies to address spatially related issues. These technologies can help reduce or eliminate food security, transportation, and natural disasters.

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Francesco Fuentes — Florida, U.S.

Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D.

I research soft robotics, which are robots made mainly of compliant, or squishy, materials. These kinds of robots are incredibly robust and can play critical roles in surgeries and environmental exploration.

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Brooks Leftwich — Tennessee, U.S.

Engineering Education, Ph.D.

I'm investigating undergraduate students' ethical development, and I am specifically interested in understanding why students choose specific jobs upon graduation and how a company's or industry's ethical foundation may influence that decision.

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Rachel Gehr — New York, U.S.

Engineering Education, Ph.D.

I am working on the Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement (SCALE) K-12 project that provides integrated STEM curriculum introducing microelectronics to students in Indiana. Microchip design and manufacturing is a rapidly growing industry and I am excited to motivate students to pursue this field.

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Nazmul Haque — Bangladesh

Materials Engineering, Ph.D.

I am developing a tool to directly visualize and quantify localized stresses in polymer composites that cause their sudden failure. Our research will help to design better, prototype these materials, reduce manufacturing costs and increase their service life.

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Amit Yadav — India

Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ph.D.

There are several online tools readily available to generate fake high quality digital media (image, text, video, speech). Several incidents report their use for spreading misinformation and committing financial frauds. My research involves developing speech recognition and computer vision methods that process speech and video signal to determine if they are real or fake/manipulated. If it is manipulated my research also involves localizing which regions are manipulated, and if it is fake then it involves identifying the method used for generating it. This is particularly useful in the investigation of crimes, where digital evidence can play a crucial role in identifying suspects and proving guilt or innocence. It also helps to verify the authenticity of social media posts and news content, and in detecting fake news and disinformation campaigns. That is essential for making informed decisions and maintaining trust in our digital world.

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Lexy Arinze — Delta, Nigeria

Engineering Education, Ph.D.

Lexy Arinze, a first-generation graduate student from Nigeria, earned his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Ibadan before participating in a student abroad program in Spain. Upon returning to Nigeria, he worked as a graduate Engineer at Arup for 1.5 years. He recently obtained his master's degree in Civil Engineering at Purdue University and currently is pursuing his Ph.D. in Engineering Education.

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Muna Awajan — Jordan

Electrical Engineering, Ph.D.

I am doing research in the field and optics. Currently, I am working on radio frequency device design development and implementations, specifically adaptive impedance tuners networks, which are contributors to advances in wireless technologies.

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Abhinav (Abhi) Ramkumar — Indiana, U.S.

Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D.

I'm excited about the application of statistical physics and network science in the context of granular materials, which is the second most manipulated material in industry after water. I'm especially excited about utilizing multiscale materials modelling in solving energy-related challenges as it can make an impact on efficiency of manufacturing materials and in designing resilient sociotechnical systems.

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Antonio Alvarez Valdivia — Mexico

Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D.

My research focuses on designing touchable interfaces for Human-Robot Interaction. These interfaces will provide new, more intuitive ways to interact with robots and machines.

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