Once upon a time, engineers were stereotyped for their social disconnect and disassociation with the world. While many stereotypes have principles of merit, this one falls short with EEE graduate student Laura Almeida Tinjaca. Far from an isolated mathlete, Laura is using her engineering skills to encourage fellow engineers and the world to be more sustainable.

Life is full of demands on our time. Balancing professional ambition with personal and family time often feels like an unsolvable math problem. While each of us search for our own answer, Melanie Hock is creating hers. Like a true engineer, Melanie finds an innovative solution through taking on part-time engineering work while raising her young children.

If you could have lunch with top professionals in your field, what would you ask them?
For Environmental and Ecological Engineering (EEE) students, this isn’t a theoretical question. Each spring semester, our undergraduate seminar course brings various industry professionals to campus. They present on topics in their field, network with EEE professors, and finally, sit down to lunch with a group of EEE students.

Tammi Thayer, Associate Director of Advising for Purdue Environmental and Ecological Engineering, has received a Bravo Award for her extraordinary work over the past year.

Soy-based materials developed at Purdue University have been proven to reduce surface tension in a liquid as well as or better than commercial petroleum-based materials. The new materials could make personal care products more sustainable while maintaining product quality. Petroleum-based surfactants are used in most conventional shampoos, conditioners and antimicrobial washes.

Earlier today, John W. Sutherland, Fehsenfeld Head of Environmental and Ecological Engineering and Professor of Environmental and Ecological Engineering was named a distinguished professor by Purdue University's Board of Trustees.

Your plants might love fertilizers containing nutrient-rich sewage sludge, but treating your garden or lawn with these products could be exposing you to “forever chemicals.” Some commercially available products are made from biosolids, an industry term for sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants that are used as fertilizer. The Environmental Protection Agency recently warned that sludge could contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, posing health risks to farmers, livestock and the environment.

This January, Venkat Roy, Neha Shakelly, and Xiaohan Wu, three PhD students from Purdue’s Environmental and Ecological Engineering (EEE) program who formed the team GaCycle, were announced as winners of the Electronics Scrap Recycling Advancement Prize (E-SCRAP). Each of the 10 winning teams received $50,000 in cash and $30,000 in technical assistance from a national laboratory.

Congrats to Rebecca Ciez as a recent 40 under 40 award recipient. The AAEES 40 under 40 Recognition program recipients are recognized as rising stars in the environmental engineering and science profession.

One year ago, Kendrick Hardaway received the unexpected and exciting news that he had been awarded a 2023-2024 Fulbright Grant to New Zealand. In the Fall 2023 newsletter, he shared his aspirations for the research journey with the Environmental and Ecological Engineering (EEE) community.