Across the United States today, over 25 million children will climb aboard an iconic big yellow school bus. School buses travel a collective annual total of four billion miles, consuming approximately 400 million gallons of diesel fuel and adding to the 30% of total US energy-related CO2 emissions that are produced from gasoline and diesel fuel use (as of 2022). YeChan Lim, EEE alumnus (BSEEE ’16, MSEEE ’18) and Technical Lead of the EPA’s Clean Bus Program, has been working to improve this situation since the creation of the program in 2022.

Congrats to Lindsey Payne (EEE), Marisol Sepulveda (FNR), and George Zhou (EEE/CE) for receiving funding from Indiana Water Resources Research Center and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). These three Purdue professors are researching "Bioaccumulation and Biosorption of PFAS and their precursors in the environment." They hope to involve women, minorities, and undergraduate students to deliver new PFAS detection methods to USGS.

When I made the decision to come to Purdue, I wasn’t sure where my time would take me – I only knew that I had two goals: 1) Complete a study abroad 2) Become fluent in Spanish. After three great years full of discovering my passion for environmentalism and pursuing exciting extracurriculars, I realized my time was coming to an end and my desire to study abroad was still strong.

This Spring, graduate staff members Tripta Bhattacharjee, Chris Copeland, and Kendrick Hardaway, and EEE staff members Michelle Indarjit, and Tammi Thayer received Employee Recognition Awards as part of the University’s employee recognition and retention efforts.

New this year, EEE has a fund focused wholly on aiding undergraduate and graduate students. Gifts will go directly to students in need of help with research, study abroad experiences, service learning, class fees, conference attendance, and more.

Meet Purdue EEE women, Maddy Williams (BSEEE '18), Hailey Benfield (Current EEE Sophomore), Rebecca Ciez (EEE Associate Professor), and Clarreese Greene (Current EEE PhD student). For them, women's history is in the making.

An interdisciplinary team of Purdue engineering students, led by associate professor Zhi (George) Zhou, is one of the top 15 teams among 225 teams in the country selected as finalists in the EnergyTech University Prize 2024 competition. These teams have been awarded $3,000 for their business plans and will advance to compete in the National Pitch Event this April at the Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas.

Congrats to Rebecca Ciez on receiving a 2023 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award! She was awarded $50,000 from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for her team’s project: “Plastic Waste to DAC: A Study of the Chemical and Lifecycle Feasibility of Converting Polyolefin Waste to Aminopolymers for Direct Air Capture.”

Purdue University will play a significant role in the Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine (or ReNEW). EEE's Linda Lee serves as PI for Purdue's research which will help define and advance strategies that eliminate toxic so-called “forever chemicals,” while also extracting valuable, reusable minerals from wastewater.

Rylan Elliott, Thalia May, and Adam Spieth brought their Purdue Environmental and Ecological Engineering brains and work ethic to the central Dominican Republic last December. Why? To build a reliable water system for the school community of El Desecho.