Purdue Engineering Fellows recall experiences, encourage nominations
The Purdue Engineering Fellows award recognizes the powerful impact students have on the college experience at Purdue University with a ceremony, a photo on the wall of the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering and $25,000.
What do Fellows do with the award money after graduation? Some pay for graduate school. Some take vacations. Some invest in new initiatives.
The Fellows award was established through the generosity of Robert H. Buckman (BSChE ’59) and wife Joyce A. Mollerup in 2019, with the first cohort graduating in 2020. The honor recognizes students with a well-rounded set of achievements and impact, ranging from academic research to humanitarian work, who are considered the best student representatives of the College of Engineering. Buckman and Mollerup want the wide variety of students who make a difference in the Purdue community to be celebrated.
"Opening windows of opportunity for those who make a difference is what this initiative is all about,” Buckman said. "Our hope is that the award will continue to stimulate Purdue Engineering students to think outside of the box of conventional thinking.”
Although students cannot self-nominate, they are encouraged to seek out faculty or staff who can submit a nomination on their behalf. The nomination process itself is coordinated primarily by faculty, staff and peers who recognize the students’ contributions. Faculty and staff may nominate any rising senior students graduating in May 2026, even those who have not actively pursued a nomination. The process — submitted as a nomination packet through an online portal — helps ensure that nominated students are meaningfully connected to the communities they serve, whether in labs, clubs or other settings.
The first cohort of five students was awarded $10,000 each upon graduation. The award amount increased to $20,000 in 2022. The most recent seven-person cohort received $25,000 apiece.
Becoming a Fellow enables students to follow dreams they may have never considered possible. And nominations are open now.
Eligible candidates for the Purdue Engineering Fellows are full-time engineering students who will graduate in May 2026. Students should have a Curriculum Vitae (CV) or résumé prepared to aid nominators.
Past Purdue Engineering Fellows adventures
For Angie Zhang (BSAAE ’22), $20,000 meant three things: paying off student loans, starting post-college life in Seattle and taking the vacation of a lifetime throughout Europe.
Being considered the “best of the best” of Purdue Engineering was a far cry from where Zhang, a first-generation student, started. While still in First-Year Engineering, Zhang’s grades dropped. She ultimately lost the scholarship that had allowed her to attend Purdue.
Zhang was living her “personal definition of failure” in 2020. Living far from her Los Angeles home, she felt like an island in an additional semester of FYE and even considered transferring. She started with heavy involvement in too many clubs, which made studying engineering much harder than the rigorous classes typically proved to be.
Zhang settled into the Purdue Student Engineering Foundation (PSEF) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and let every other involvement go to focus on bringing her grades up. At the conclusion of her third semester of FYE, Zhang’s grades recovered, and she was accepted into the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She was re-awarded the scholarship as well.
“When I found PSEF and SWE and dove into leading, that's where I found my family,” Zhang said. “It was my home away from home.”
Suddenly Zhang, a sophomore at the time, could tangibly picture herself on the wall of Engineering Fellows in Armstrong Hall. It was an exciting change of pace from the feeling of simply surviving that first year.
“It was a dream of mine since freshman year, when I saw the first Fellows pictures,” Zhang said. “I remember thinking that I wanted to become one. So overcoming all that I did and being recognized as one was an amazing moment.”
Zhang was elated to be awarded $10,000 as a 2021-2022 Engineering Fellow. Her parents flew from California to West Lafayette, Indiana, for the ceremony in October 2021. Then, just a few months before graduating in 2022, Buckman and Mollerup sat down with the awardees and told them that the award amount doubled to $20,000.
That definitely meant a month of European vacationing was how she would celebrate earning an aeronautical and astronautical engineering degree.
Zhang began her dream job a few months later as a flight test engineer at Boeing in Seattle. The dream evolved over the next three years, where Zhang moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and began work as a manufacturing engineer.
Rithika Athreya (BSChE ’24) found out she had been recognized as a 2023-24 Engineering Fellow at the stroke of midnight.
Athreya had spent five years enhancing the community of Purdue’s chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers with alumni connections and social spaces for students. She had assisted in major innovations, both in Purdue labs and in big-name beauty companies like Procter & Gamble and L’Oréal. And with the time she had between these commitments and a demanding courseload, Athreya hosted an installment of "Office Hours," a College of Engineering (COE) video series that gives a glimpse into the lives of professors. And she served as a teaching assistant in the Office of Professional Practice for two years, supporting first-year students as they developed professional skills to begin their careers.
Her work brought heart and connection to the Purdue community. In 2020, that was no small feat.
“I felt extremely thankful that the COE had chosen me to receive this award,” said Athreya, an alum of the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. “A huge thank you has to be said to Bob and Joyce for investing in the education of Purdue students. I felt grateful that my work was recognized as impactful enough to merit this award.”
After calling her mom with the news, Athreya made a plan to save most of the $20,000 award money for graduate school. But that didn’t mean a once-in-a-lifetime vacation wasn’t on the docket. After graduating in 2024, she checked off three countries in a one-month trip: Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
Upon returning, Athreya returned to L’Oréal, not as an intern but as a management trainee beginning two years of professional rotations. She spends her days checking that claims made by the beauty giant’s advertising have roots in the science with which they’re made. Athreya will delve back into the world of chemical engineering in a future rotation and graduate school. Eventually, she aspires to combine the degree and professional experiences into creating her own line of beauty products.
Like Zhang and Athreya, Ben Pekarek (BSECE ’24) enjoyed a summer of financial freedom after being named a 2023-24 Engineering Fellow. But his idea of a vacation was a bit different from usual sightseeing and intense backpacking: He coached at a children’s soccer camp in Spain.
“I had studied Spanish for four years before going to Spain and I really liked playing soccer,” said Pekarek, from West Lafayette, Indiana. “I got to play soccer with the kids and some friends I made in Spain while working on my Spanish with fluent conversation. I didn’t have to worry about the opportunity cost of doing that in favor of an engineering job.”
Pekarek enjoyed the leisurely pace of work in Europe. He returned to the U.S. at the end of the summer energized and refreshed, ready to start a master’s in electrical engineering at Stanford University in 2024. The conversational fluency in Spanish was an asset he wouldn’t have had without being honored as an Engineering Fellow.
In the spring of 2023, Pekarek, whose mentor Alexa Stern (BSABE ’23) had been recognized as a 2022-23 Engineering Fellow in the fall, gave a résumé to his academic advisor who nominated him as a Fellow. With PESC president and past Industrial Roundtable director on that résumé, he was confident in his odds of being honored. Even if he wasn’t selected, it was worth a shot. After all, the award was nearly two years’ worth of tuition.
Pekarek was delighted when all his work had paid off. Literally.
According to Athreya, Pekarek and Zhang, there’s no set combination of skills, grades or clubs that guarantee being selected as a Purdue Engineering Fellow, butcommitment, passion and authenticity are crucial elements.
“It's never too late to start making an impact,” Pekarek said. “Everybody who has won the award, it's because they find something they’re passionate about and kind of lock in on it. If you let your passion speak for itself, that’s what makes an application good.”
Pekarek shared that advice with then-sophomore Adrienne Cibulka when she joined PESC. Cibulka was recognized for her impact as a 2024-25 Engineering Fellow.
“It’s easy to compare yourself to other students and feel anxious that you’re not doing enough,” Athreya said. "Trust yourself and the decisions you make. Every Engineering Fellow has had a diverse range of experiences at Purdue, demonstrating that there are many different paths to selection.”
The cosmetics industry Athreya is breaking into is competitive, but so was the Engineering Fellows award. It was authenticity that kept her on the path to success.
“Fellows is really about showing off your truest perception of you,” Zhang said. “You can really do that by pouring your heart into something and making a big impact in a club that you care about. It’s better than doing something for the title.”
Zhang gave that advice to one of her mentees in 2022, Jessica Mu. It was a special full-circle moment when Mu was recognized as an Engineering Fellow in 2024.
All nominations are due June 30, 2025, through the online form submitted by Purdue faculty or staff on behalf of a student. Questions regarding the Purdue Engineering Fellows nomination process can be directed to Stephen Stewart (stewarsr@purdue.edu).
