Tamara L. Markey serves as director of Engineering Student Success at Purdue University, where she leads collegewide efforts to strengthen retention, accelerate graduation and ensure students are prepared to excel professionally on Day 1. Her work centers on building structured systems of academic support, mentoring, scholarship coordination and community engagement that support students from transition through graduation.
A proud Purdue engineering alumna, Markey brings both personal and professional insight to her leadership. As a first-generation, low-income student who benefited from strong institutional support, she is deeply committed to expanding access and strengthening outcomes for students navigating similar pathways. Under her leadership, Engineering Student Success has continued to scale evidence-based practices that improve persistence, academic performance and sense of belonging within one of the nation’s largest engineering colleges.
Prior to her current role, Markey served as associate director of Purdue’s Minority Engineering Program, where she led retention strategy, managed corporate and alumni partnerships, and developed recruitment-to-graduation pipelines supporting under-resourced students. She has also served as a STEM educator, district consultant and curriculum leader and was named the 2019 Indiana Teacher of the Year. Her career reflects a consistent focus on system-level improvement, student advocacy and measurable impact.
Before entering education, Markey held business development and strategic planning roles at BP/Amoco Pipeline Company, bringing operational discipline and analytical rigor to her work in higher education.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering and a Master of Science in engineering and technology education, both from Purdue University. A recipient of the Purdue Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award, Markey is driven by a simple belief: Student success is not accidental. It is designed, supported and sustained through intentional leadership.