Senior associate dean Alexeenko to transition to lead pharmaceutical manufacturing initiatives
The conversations started soon after Alina Alexeenko assumed a new role as associate dean of undergraduate education in Purdue’s College of Engineering in Fall 2019.
Members of the Purdue Engineering Student Council’s mental health committee wondered how they could address well-being needs among the student body.
And then March 2020 hit.
During the pandemic, the need for a program and a space for students to get help became even more acute.
Ultimately, those discussions established the Community, Assistance and Resources for Engineering Students (CARES) Hub, which launched in January 2024 after years of work, research and problem-solving. The free service for students has a director, licensed psychologist and will be adding more staff and student peer counselors to facilitate walk-in and scheduled appointments to provide low-barrier, high-access support.
Working with “amazing student leaders” for that initiative was one of the highlights during Alexeenko’s tenure as senior associate dean for undergraduate education and academic programs in Indianapolis, she said.
But it was only one transformational moment for engineering undergraduate education in the last five years during Alexeenko’s tenure, which will end July 15.
Since 2019, the office made significant progress and growth, expanding experiential learning opportunities for students through new hands-on courses, cross-cutting certificates and internships, supporting students with new scholarships programs, generating pathways for transfers through joint and dual degree programs and creating unique opportunities for students in Indianapolis.
“Under Professor Alexeenko’s tenure as associate dean for undergraduate education, the undergraduate education office helped ensure excellence in student success, even as we grew in scale,” said Arvind Raman, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering. “In particular, first-year retention rates and four-, five- and six-year graduation rates are at all-time highs, experiential learning opportunities for students have significantly expanded, many new certificates and concentrations have been added and, as a result, our disciplinary undergraduate reputational rankings improved significantly.”
Alexeenko, a professor in aeronautics and astronautics with a joint appointment in chemical engineering, will transition to focus primarily on pharmaceutical manufacturing-connected initiatives and expects to take intermittent sabbaticals in Spring 2025 and Spring 2026.
Alexeenko will work to help LyoWave Inc., a high-tech startup company she co-founded and recently received a venture capital investment to launch its first product, commercialize a patented, innovative microwave heating technologies developed at Purdue that will “make a real-world impact on manufacturing critical medicines and vaccines,” she said.
She also will continue to lead university-industry center LyoHUB into its second decade as co-director, focusing on implementation of a new technology roadmap and building a lyophilization facility in the Indiana Manufacturing Institute at Purdue Research Park as part of her role as a co-director of the Young Institute of Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals that launched in 2022. The institute, which focuses on revolutionizing pharmaceutical manufacturing and making medicines more accessible, affordable and widely available, leads Purdue’s strategic involvement in the Heartland BioWorks hub. As a member of Heartland BioWorks, Purdue will share in $51 million in federal funding to bolster workforce development and business startup efforts in the state’s burgeoning biotechnology ecosystem.
“Now is a great time for me to complete this service assignment because I think we have a great team in undergraduate education,” said Alexeenko, recipient of the college’s Dean H T Yang Leadership in Service Award in 2023. “That’s the No. 1 thing I’m proud of. I’m really happy about being able to recruit great people to join the college’s Office of Undergraduate Education.”