The HFES Purdue Chapter won the Gold Chapter Award for its activities during the 2017-18 academic year. Also, a cross-disciplinary team of three Purdue chapter members won the Heuristic Evaluation Competition during User Experience (UX) Day 2018.

The Gold Chapter Award requires activity in at least eight categories with excellence in at least five categories, and at least 50% of the student members also being HFES Student Affiliate members. The categories are: recruitment, guest speakers, field trips, outreach/volunteerism, collaboration, service to HFES, exploration, social, information dissemination, mentorship, continuous improvement, and creativity. The Purdue chapter has about 40 members and is advised by Dr. Denny Yu, assistant professor of industrial engineering, and Dr. Robert W. Proctor, distinguished professor of psychological sciences (with a courtesy appointment in industrial engineering).

The UX Day challenge was titled "UX in Practice: Applying a Heuristic Evaluation Technique to Real-World Challenges". Teams of 3-5 participants performed heuristic evaluations of the Business Wire website, a global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Teams completed the evaluation prior to UX Day, and presented their findings to a panel of judges. The winning Purdue team included chapter Co-presidents Jackie Cha (IE) and Isis Chong (psychological sciences), and chapter Secretary Yuhao "Frank" Peng (IE).

The HFES annual meeting took place in Philadelphia from Oct. 1-5.