Category: Alumni

Destiny White didn’t set out to become Purdue’s first Black female nuclear engineering graduate, but she did just that.

Like all good ideas, Junobie was created out of necessity. As a traveling working mother of two, Nickey Ramsey became frustrated with the few options available at the time to store her breastmilk — or, as she calls it, “liquid gold” — while on-the-go.

For Joanne Troutner, Purdue University is more than her alma mater. It’s a family. She describes Purdue as a launchpad — “A place where I was allowed to be excellent.”
“How could I not want to give back?” she asks, voice ripe with sincerity.

Beth Hess has been there, done that. That’s why she feels so strongly about the importance of connecting course concepts with real-world applications.

In three decades leading Purdue’s Minority Engineering Program, Marion Blalock created recruitment, retention and graduation initiatives for underrepresented minority students that were so successful that the MEP became a model for universities across the nation.