Elevating Student Experience
Scholarships, student opportunities, diversity programs, student clubs
Endowed Scholarship Advances Women in Engineering
When adults ask little girls what they want to be when they grow up, not many answer “engineer.” As it turns out, neither did Patti Poppe.
Poppe, who earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Purdue’s School of Industrial Engineering (BS ’89, MS ’91), grew up as the daughter of an engineer. She was not interested in the field, however, until she visited Purdue during the Women in Engineering Career Day.
“It changed my life,” she says.
Touch the Sky
When Anthony Thornton (PhD AAE ’92) traces his accomplished career in aerospace engineering to its beginning, he pictures himself at 12 years old watching B-52 bombers on the tarmac with his father, a 27-year veteran of the United States Air Force.
Materials Engineering Alum Supports Life-Shaping Programs
As a Purdue student in the 1960s, Bob Hull found his time as a musician as rewarding as his metallurgical engineering studies. It is no surprise that in his philanthropy he gives back to the two programs that helped shape him — and that he hopes will shape future students.
Gratitude Begins Early
In the U.S., the average age of a charitable donor is 62, according to the 2017 Blackbaud charitable giving report. Which makes Sujata (BSChE ’99) and Andrew (BSEE ’00) Offenbacher highly unusual. And that surprises them.
Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship Attracts Female Scholars to Purdue
In 2017, Purdue recruited two high-achieving graduate student scholars, including one in Engineering, thanks to the Clare Boothe Luce Program (CBL).
Purdue applied to the program’s nationwide competition and was chosen by the Clare Boothe Luce Program Selection Committee to receive a $300,000 grant for graduate fellowships.
Siblings Team Up to Endow a Scholarship
It started as a joke.
Adam Potrzebowski (BSME ’15) was at lunch with his sister, Erin (BSME ’09), a few other Mechanical Engineering alumni and a representative from the College of Engineering’s development office when he asked, tongue firmly in cheek, “How expensive would it be to name the school after me?”
A Latin American Ambassador
As a Salvadoran teenager, Carlos Moreno (BSIE ’94) witnessed the death and destruction from the Latin American country’s prolonged civil war, which lasted from 1979 to 1992. After completing his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, there was only one place he saw himself building a career: his home country. He wanted to help rebuild El Salvador.
Shell Oil Inspires a New Generation of Engineers
Mary Slater may not be an engineer herself, but she spends a lot of time with engineers.
For Young Alumna, Giving Back is Second Nature
In some sense, Chemical Engineering alumna Samantha Sanders never stopped giving back to Purdue.
During her undergraduate years, she volunteered as a student ambassador, a tutor and a leader in the Minority Engineering Program. “When I was part of those programs at Purdue, I wanted to help prospective students and encourage them,” Sanders says.