Engineering Advisory Council - Active
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Virgin Galactic
Sirisha Bandla’s earliest childhood memories involve lying on the roof of her family’s home in India and staring at the night sky.
“In India, your power would come in for hours at a time and then shut off. And when it shut off at night, the sky was just brilliant,” Bandla said. “There’s so many stars, and it’s hot there, so sometimes you sleep outside on the roof. Those are some of the memories I have, of me looking up and falling asleep under millions of stars. I think that slowly started my fascination with space.”
In time, she decided that she wanted to become an engineer and astronaut, too. And she applied to only one university, Purdue, because of her single-minded desire to reach that goal. Although not by the traditional path that most of the 25 previous Boilermaker astronauts had followed.
In July 2021, at just 34 years old, Bandla was one of four mission specialists on Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 suborbital flight, which reached 53.5 miles above Earth. During a 90-minute mission on that July morning, the little girl who used to stare up at the stars was now among them.
As Virgin Galactic’s vice president of government affairs and research operations, Bandla provided an especially meaningful presence on the first fully crewed spaceflight by a private commercial company. Her mission is to help the company create opportunities for anyone to travel into space, and it did that very thing for her since poor eyesight prevented her from pursuing a coveted position as a NASA astronaut.
Mr. de Bedout is a director of VF Corporation, maker of lifestyle brands such as The North Face©, Timberland© and Vans©. Additionally, he is chair of Purdue's Engineering Advisory Council, a member of the university's Industrial Engineering and Global Affairs Strategic Advisory Councils and of the Penn State Enterprise Integration Consortium Industry Advisory Board.
Born in Medellín, Colombia, he earned his industrial engineering Bachelor (1967) and Master (1968) degrees from Purdue and received the university's Outstanding Industrial Engineer (1998), Distinguished Engineering Alumnus (2000) and Engineering Alumni Association (2002) awards. Purdue bestowed him an Honorary Doctor in Engineering degree (2013) and more recently, the students selected him an Old Master (2014).
Of great pride are the strategically-impactful, mutual-benefit programs evolving from the Colombia-Purdue Institute that he has helped forge, also known as the CPI.
His two sons and nephew are all engineers, two of them with Purdue PhD degrees.
Viveca joined Kellogg in 2012. While at Kellogg, Viveca has served as the Senior Director for R&D Cost Optimization where she delivered Food and Packaging reformulation savings across the North America business units; and as the Senior Director for Global Pringles Engineering.
Viveca began her career as a Power & Controls Engineer at Procter & Gamble (P&G) in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1991. During her 21 year career at P&G, Viveca progressed through regional and global roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently at P&G, Viveca was the Associate Director of Global Pringles Engineering, Materials and Packaging Innovation.
Viveca is a proud Boilermaker and earned her Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue in 1990. While at Purdue, Viveca served as President of the National Society of Black Engineers. After graduation, Viveca maintained strong ties with Purdue serving on the NSBE Industrial Advisory Board, the Purdue Alumni Association Board of Directors and the Purdue Alumni Association Executive Committee. In addition, she served as President of the Purdue Black Alumni Organization for ten years.
Viveca and her husband Darren Henderson, a fellow Purdue electrical engineering alum, live in Michigan. Viveca and Darren are the proud parents of a ten-year old son Bryce that they affectionately describe as an adult history buff in a child's body.
Viveca is very engaged in the community and is a member of several service-focused organizations. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated; the Second Vice-President for the Kalamazoo Michigan Chapter of The Links, Incorporated; and the Foundation Chairperson for the Southwestern Michigan Chapter of Jack & Jill of America, Incorporated. Professionally, Viveca is a member of the CALIBR Global Leadership Network.
Outside of work, Viveca enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling, reading and collecting art. She has a passion for developing youth and frequently conducts etiquette workshops for students at the elementary school, high school and college level.
She lives by the following motto: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."
Prior to Apple, Bill spent 14 years with IBM where he held senior management positions in materials management, logistics, engineering, and information systems. Bill also spent 3 years as Vice President of Operations for Intelligent Electronics, a technology products distributor, where he was responsible for the company's logistics, distribution, and configuration operations.
Bill earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue in 1982 and an MBA from Duke University in 1987. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife Karen.
Executive Vice President, Air Liquide Group
Michael Graff chose to study engineering because it drew on his interests in math, chemistry and physics and allowed him to work with new and innovative technology. For him, it presented limitless opportunity in a changing world—a way to be a part of making it a better place. After getting his master's degree in chemical engineering at Purdue, Graff embarked on a long career that has led him to positions as president or CEO of chemical and polymer businesses across the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
He joined Air Liquide in 2007 and today serves as the chairman and CEO of American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc., executive vice president of the Air Liquide Group, and chairman of the board of Airgas. Based out of Houston, Texas, Graff leads the business operations for the Americas, the largest region of the Air Liquide Group, and is global chairman of the Group’s electronics business line while supervising the Group’s engineering and construction activities.
In addition to his work with Air Liquide, Graff serves on the board of directors of Westlake Chemical, as well as on a number of industry and civic boards. He became the American Chemistry Council’s newest board officer in January 2023. Graff is also a principal of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s American Energy Innovation Council, and a member of the National Petroleum Council and the United States Investment Advisory Council, chairing the Committee on Competitiveness for the U.S. Department of Commerce.
He was the recipient of the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering’s Outstanding Chemical Engineer award in 2002 and Purdue Engineering’s Distinguished Engineering Alumni award in 2008.
Member, Board of Directors of PG&E Corporation
Born in Cuba, Carlos M. Hernandez arrived in the United States with his parents as a political exile at the age of 8. He grew up in South Florida and attended Archbishop Curley High School where his affinity for math and science guided him to an education in engineering. Although there was no prior family or geographic connection, his college search identified Purdue as the best fit as a highly regarded coeducational engineering university with broad offerings in academics, athletics and social opportunities. He set foot in West Lafayette for the first time in August 1972 for freshman orientation.
After leaving Purdue, he enrolled at the University of Miami Law School, graduating in 1979, and thereafter joined a Miami law firm representing contractors.
In 2007, Fluor Corporation – the largest publicly-traded engineering and construction company on the New York Stock Exchange with worldwide projects – offered him the position of chief legal officer. In 2019, he took on the role of chief executive officer retiring in December 2020. Prior to joining Fluor, he served as general counsel for ArcelorMittal Americas, a major steel producer that is part of the ArcelorMittal steel group.
Hernandez brings decades of executive leadership experience in key industries. His career has spanned engineering, procurement, manufacturing and distribution companies, and his expertise includes risk management, safety and environmental matters, governance, compliance and law.
3D Systems Corporation
Rahul Kasat joined 3D Systems Corporation, a leading additive manufacturing solutions company, as its vice president in April 2022 after serving as CEO of Total Robotics, Ltd. for four years. Titan Robotics was acquired by 3D Systems in 2022.
After receiving his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, Kasat joined Dupont where he rose from research engineer to technical team leader and marketing manager. In January 2014, he was named Project Leader for Strategy, Channel, Pricing and M&A before being promoted to Global Business Development Leader and Global Business Leader for 3D Printing. He joined Titan Robotics in April 2018.
At Dupont, Kasat led PhD chemical engineering recruiting for one of the company’s R&D division and served as corporate recruiter for PhDs at Purdue. He won the 2008 Separations Division Graduate Student Award given by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in recognition of outstanding graduate students in one of seven Separations Division areas.
Prior to joining PSAV, she was the Executive Vice President and CIO for the Hub Group, a $3+ Billion transportation company. Here, she was highly focused on re-invigorating the information technology team to deliver high business value, high quality, on time programs with strategic and secure use of cloud service offerings and other current technologies, processes and approaches.
Prior to the Hub Group, she spent 10 years at Motorola,, Inc, where she held roles in customer service and information technology. In addition to leading IT for key divisions such as the Mobile Devices business and overall IT Operations, in 2010, Ms Kozik led the information technology separation of the company as it split into two publicly traded companies. Prior to Motorola, Ms Kozik worked for Tellabs in engineering and Information technology, serving as its first CIO, and for AT&T in engineering. She graduated from Purdue in 1982 with her Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering, where she was named a Distinguished Engineering Alumnae in 2015. She graduated from University of Chicago in 1987 with her Masters of Business Administration. Ms Kozik serves on the board of Northwestern Memorial Health Care (NMHC), one of the nations top providers of healthcare, and the board for Lumity, a non-profit focused on providing transformational experiences to inner city youth, preparing them for lifelong STEM careers.
Charles River Development
Peter Lambertus built the Charles River Development financial services company from the ground up, in part because he got a kick out of doing things that were hard. “I enjoyed taking on difficult jobs that others avoided or couldn’t do,” Lambertus says. “I was sometimes a maverick in wanting to remedy bad situations or technical designs even though it meant an uphill battle against status quo and bureaucracy.”
Today, the company Lambertus founded and ran until its 2018 sale to State Street Corporation supports over 300 clients in more than 40 countries, managing over $25 trillion in assets. As he looks back on the foundation for his success, he is grateful to Purdue for helping him learn how to approach problems.
He credits his Purdue education in playing a major role in acquiring the critical-thinking skills necessary for creating work products and solving problems. “Purdue engineering taught me to understand not just ‘what’ and ‘how’ in approaching situations, but just as importantly, ‘why,’” he said.
In June 2020, the Purdue Board of Trustees approved the naming of the second Gateway Complex building as Lambertus Hall in recognition of Peter and Ann Lambertus’ $10 million gift. The Complex was dedicated in April 2023.
CMC Materials
David Li worked for more than two decades for Cabot Microelectronics Corporation (CMC), a leading global supplier of specialty materials focused on advanced semiconductors and energy industries. Early on after joining the company, he was identified as a future executive and was placed in various leadership roles to assist CMC in becoming a publicly listed company and firmly establishing itself as an industry leader for semiconductor materials.
During his tenure, Li streamlined upper management, revamped the company’s culture, drove the acquisition of two companies, and positioned CMC as a top supplier to companies like Samsung, Intel and TSMC. As a result, during his 8-year tenure as CEO, Li was able to drive record financial, organizational, and shareholder performance. Before assuming CMC’s top spot, he was vice president of the company’s Asia Pacific Region for eight years and holds a sense of pride for leading cultural change within the company.
Li retired as president, CEO, and board member of CMC Materials in 2022 after the company accepted a friendly $6.5 billion buyout offer from Entegris Corporation, representing approximately a four-fold return to shareholders over Li’s eight-year term in this role. At the time of Li’s retirement, CMC reported a revenue of $1.2 billion, operating profit of more than 30 percent, and 2,000+ employees.
Now a permanent resident of Singapore, Li sits on the board of directors at Coorstek, an advanced ceramics technology company, and is a limited partner at Novotellus, a technology based private equity fund. He also serves on the portfolio committee of A*STAR, a Temasek-backed fund focused on helping the next generation of start-ups thrive in Singapore. At Purdue, he serves as a visiting scholar and guest lecturer to enhance students’ preparation for careers in semiconductor manufacturing and beyond. He was honored with Purdue’s Outstanding Chemical Engineer Award in 2017.
Li is the founder and chairman of the Li Family Charitable Foundation. In 2019, he and his wife, Sophia Li, provided a major gift for scholarships to the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. In addition, Li provides guidance and mentoring for Asian American students at Purdue and other organizations and institutions who are interested in leadership and managerial careers in industry. Li is also working on a book project to share knowledge and wisdom from the most accomplished Asian American leaders to inspire the next generation.
Martinson Ventures
John Martinson has been a venture capitalist for 40 years, participating in more than 200 equity financings and serving as a director of 55 companies. He is well known in the software industry, Mid-Atlantic region business community, and nationally in the private equity industry.
Martinson Ventures makes investments ranging from $250K to $3.5M. He targets information technology businesses serving healthcare, education, financial and other applications.
He founded Edison Partners in 1986. Edison Partners has raised eight partnerships with more than $1 billion capital and has invested in over 210 growth businesses and exited more than 155 companies.
In April 2022, the Purdue University Board of Trustees approved naming the Honors College for Martinson in recognition of a $25 million gift. He has previously given nearly $9 million to the College of Engineering. His gifts established the John Martinson Entrepreneurial Center in 2019 and have supported the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering, EPICS and Women in Engineering.
Martinson earned a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy, an M.S. in Astronautics from Purdue University, and an MBA from Southern Illinois University. All three institutions honored him with top alumni accomplishment awards.Prior to joining Google in 2010, Jim was executive vice president of Sanmina-SCI Corporation, one of the world’s largest electronic manufacturing service providers, where he had responsibility for their industrial, clean tech, multimedia and automotive businesses.
Jim has held a variety of leadership roles throughout his career. He has held numerous executive leadership roles in operations and supply chain management at Cisco, Amazon.com, Teledesic LLC, Intel and IBM.
Jim has a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue University, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in management from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was a “MIT Leaders for Manufacturing” Fellow.
Jim serves on the advisory board of a number of West Coast clean tech and supply chain software start-ups, including Docusign. He also serves on the Engineering Advisory Committee for Purdue University’s School of Engineering, where is he is a recipient of the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award and the Outstanding Aerospace Engineer Award. Jim is also a on the Leadership Council of the Corporate Eco Forum, a cross-industry consortium to help accelerate sustainable business practices. Jim also serves on the MIT Corporation, which provides counsel on current activities and future directions of MIT.
Morris also served as Executive Director for Global Vehicle Performance of the Proving Grounds and Test Labs from 2006-2013. In this position, he led the teams that execute the crash performance, ride, handling, aerodynamics, fuel economy, noise, and vibration for GM. He also managed the GM Proving Grounds and testing facilities in the U.S., Korea, Germany, Brazil, Australia, China, and India.
Morris began his General Motors career in 1989 as a brake systems engineer and has held multiple engineering positions over the years. He was the Lead Development Engineer for the original CTS which marked Cadillac's return to rear-wheel-drive vehicles. During this time, he pioneered GM North America's usage of the famed Nurburgring in Germany for vehicle development. Morris has held GM's highest driving certification since 1998 and has accumulated more than 1800 laps on the Nurburgring Nordschleife while leading the dynamic development of GMs vehicles.
A native of Indiana, Morris graduated from Purdue University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He and his wife have two children.
Chief Executive Officer, Bangs Laboratories, Inc.
Chief Executive Officer, Ethos Biosciences
Ryan Ott is co-CEO at Ott Scientific, a family owned and operated group of specialty chemical manufacturing companies including Polysciences, Bangs Laboratories, Ethos Biosciences, and Creative Consumer Products. He currently is executive vice president of Polysciences, Inc., and serves as chief executive officer for Fishers, Ind.-based Bangs Laboratories and Ethos Biosciences, a bioscience company with three core capabilities: dye, stain, and reagent manufacturing, ELISA development and manufacturing with a focus in nephrology, and Lateral flow assay development and manufacturing.
Ott earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue in 2007 and an MBA from Villanova University in 2014.
Ben Pekarek is a native of West Lafayette, Indiana, and an Electrical Engineering major who will begin his senior year in Fall 2023. He has led the largest student-run career fair in the nation, the Industrial Roundtable at Purdue. He also serves as president of the Purdue Engineering Student Council (PESC), a group whose goal is to serve students, industry and the community.
Pekarek has completed two internships with John Deere in Dubuque, Iowa—one as an electric drives intern and the other as an embedded software intern. He has also interned at Gentiam Electronics in West Lafayette and KA Components in Otterbein, Indiana.
Apple
Daniel Rosckes is the vice president of global procurement at Apple, a position he has held since December 2000. Prior to that, he served as director of procurement at Compaq Computer Corporation from January 1987 to December 2000.
He currently serves on the advisory board for the Institute of Hard AI at Purdue.
Jennifer is a member of the Society of Women Engineers, Society of Automotive Engineers, and Women in Trucking Association. She holds a BSME from Purdue University and a MSME from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jennifer and her husband Jim have two daughters and are active members of First United Methodist church in Columbus. They enjoy hiking, cycling, and traveling.
M S International, Inc.
Manahar (Manu) Shah came to the United States from India in the mid-1970s hoping to create opportunity for his family and for others with a natural stone company. He has done just that with remarkable success.
In 1981, while still operating out of their basement, Shah secured the contract to supply the black granite for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. With their entire savings invested in the project, they made sure it was executed perfectly.
Shah soon moved the company to Southern California near its focal distribution points. Since then, he has grown the company into a worldwide flooring, wall and countertop-surface business with nearly $2 billion in annual revenues and 2,500+ employees worldwide.
He has been recognized for his achievements with the 2007 Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Distribution, Manufacturing, and Security category. He also received the Outstanding Mechanical Engineer Award from Purdue in 2018.
In 2018, his family generously donated $2.5 million to launch the Shah Family Global Innovation Lab at Purdue Engineering. The lab is designed and equipped for exploration and problem solving to generate global impact.
Donuts, Inc.
Paul Stahura earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1984 and an M.S in 1987. He is currently a board member for Donuts, Inc., a domain name registry company. Previously, Stahura served as CEO of Donuts.
Stahura started his professional career working as an engineer for Cybotech based out of the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette. After Cybotech, he founded eNom, which became the second most successful domain name registrar in the world. Stahura was CEO of eNom until he sold it to Demand Media, where he became the president and a board member. In 2009, Stahura left eNom and Demand Media and co-founded Donuts, where he was CEO until he stepped down in 2017.
He holds eight patents, is on the board of seven different companies and is currently invested in 25 startups. The startup he is proudest of is iSpot.tv, a TV ad measurement and analytics company where he was the founding investor.
Stahura currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three kids, all four of whom are either currently attending or have graduated from Purdue. His father was also an alumnus of Purdue (Northwest campus) back in the 1950s.
Dr. James A. Tompkins received the prestigious Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Industrial Engineering Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) on June 1, 2015. The award is an attribute that recognizes Dr. Tompkins through the contributions he has provided to the welfare of mankind in the field of industrial engineering. In addition, Jim has served as President of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, the Materials Management Society, and the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education, and Purdue has named him a Distinguished Engineering Alum. He has also received more than 50 additional awards for his service to his profession.
His 35-plus years as CEO of a consulting / integration firm and his focus on helping companies achieve profitable growth give him an insider’s view into what makes great companies even better. As a high-level business and supply chain strategy advisor, his unique perspective prepares corporations and executives for the future.
To share his knowledge and provide up-to-date information on supply chain and business trends, he developed his blog called “Creating Supply Chain Excellence.” Jim is also a thought leader, sharing insights on business strategy through his presentations and videos, including his most recent on The Alibaba Effect.
He has written or contributed to more than 30 books, including Caught Between the Tiger and the Dragon, Bold Leadership, Logistics and Manufacturing Outsourcing, The Supply Chain Handbook, No Boundaries and Facilities Planning. Jim has been quoted in hundreds of business and industry magazines such as The Journal of Commerce, Supply & Demand Chain Executive, and FORTUNE, and he has spoken at thousands of international engagements.
Jim received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering in 1969, his Master of Science in Industrial Engineering in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1972, all from Purdue University.
Boon-Lock Yeo earned a BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1992. He has served as a vice president of engineering at Google for 16 years and leads a global team responsible for Google Pixel software development and testing. Previously, Yeo led engineering and product at Alphabet Access/Google Fiber. He joined Google/Alphabet in 2007 and returned to Silicon Valley in 2014 after 11 years in Shanghai where he headed Google’s engineering and research efforts in Greater China and southeast Asia and co-led the Google China operations.
Before he joined Google, Yeo led R&D efforts for Intel in China, served as the general manager for Intel Asia-Pacific R&D Ltd., and oversaw the rapid expansion of Intel R&D efforts in Shanghai. He received two Intel Achievement Awards -- the highest Intel award recognizing outstanding accomplishments with significant business impacts.
Yeo received his PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton University. He is internationally recognized for his pioneering research work in data compression and compressed data processing and is an IEEE Fellow. In 2020, Yeo received an Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering (OECE) award from the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in recognition of his achievements.