Empowering students with purpose and passion

Purdue professors receive the Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award for inspiring dedication to undergraduate student success

This year’s recipients of Purdue’s Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award are molding Boilermakers into the leaders of tomorrow through innovative teaching methods and real-world projects that are making an impact locally and globally.  

Every spring, the university presents this award to outstanding faculty members with the rank of assistant or clinical assistant professor. They receive a surprise presentation in their classrooms from Purdue Pete while surrounded by students, colleagues and mentors.  

Meet the 2025 award winners:

Rebecca Johnson

“Nursing is a work of heart,” as the saying goes. And it’s one Rebecca Johnson knows well.   

Each year, the clinical assistant professor in Purdue’s School of Nursing strives to create a space for hundreds of students to learn the history, clinical techniques, dedication to service and compassion required to succeed in the notoriously tough field.  

Johnson aims to spark a passion for nursing by establishing innovative, hands-on teaching experiences, and she’s seen the promising results in her students’ feedback.  

“I love seeing comments that tell me by taking my class, it brought back their passion for nursing and showed them why they were doing what they were doing, or it inspired them to go a different direction that they weren’t going to go in before,” Johnson says. 

“Because of her, I have a new perspective on nursing,” says student Grayson Hill. “Having her as my clinical instructor has been phenomenal.” 

Since 2017, Johnson has served as a faculty advisor and co-coordinator for Water Supply in Developing Countries, an interdisciplinary class for undergraduate and graduate students where they work with faculty and community partners to provide safe drinking water and improve water sanitation and quality for peri-urban residents of the La Vega region of the Dominican Republic.  

In past years, she and her colleagues also co-created service-learning opportunities for students to collaborate with the Lafayette-based Bauer Family Resources Head Start facility to develop health promotion and education for children and their families.

In addition to teaching critical foundational nursing classes, one of Johnson’s most unique offerings is Wartime Influences in Health Care, where students interview veterans on their health care experiences and have an opportunity to submit their findings to the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project.  

These examples of her local and global impact and her warmth, selflessness and commitment as an educator and nurse led to her winning Purdue’s 2025 Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award. 

For Johnson, the award was a welcome reminder of how far she’s come in her journey. 

“I think the most important thing is just understanding that you don’t get anywhere without the help of others, whether it’s students or mentors or colleagues,” she says.  

Johnson’s role as a nursing professional has also taught her the value of being aware of everyone’s different lived experiences, and it’s a lesson she asks students to internalize when treating patients in an evolving field. 

“We have to be humble when we walk in their room and recognize that there is a power difference,” she says. “It’s important to ask, ‘How would you like to be cared for today?’” 

Johnson emphasizes the importance of this question, especially since her students work in many different health care settings including hospitals, global nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits. 

She encourages her students to explore various career paths. “I always try to tell my students that there are so many different ways that you can be a nurse,” she says. 

Wherever Johnson’s students may be, seeing them in action — especially at clinical sites — is always a possibility. 

“I tell them that’s the most exciting thing, knowing that in just a little while we’re going to be working alongside each other,” she says.

I think the most important thing is just understanding that you don’t get anywhere without the help of others, whether it’s students or mentors or colleagues.

Rebecca Johnson

Clinical assistant professor in Purdue’s School of Nursing

Yiwei Huang

Yiwei Huang’s energetic passion for teaching tomorrow’s leaders is valued by students and Purdue alike. She gives her students a safe space to dream big, make mistakes and grow.  

“You can tell every single time you walk into this classroom that she really cares about us and wants us to do well,” says student Cameron Tarpey.  

Combined with this ethos, the assistant professor of landscape architecture’s teaching approach is centered around three pillars: designing by doing (or experimenting), learning and engaging the community. And she’s challenging her students in Purdue’s College of Agriculture to experience these pillars through real-world projects. 

“Gen Z was born with technology, but they are also the group that wants to transform the world,” Huang says.  

To give her students opportunities to apply their skills outside the classroom and revitalize communities, she’s built partnerships with stakeholders across Indianapolis and Chicago, including local schools, parks, and Purdue’s Campus Planning and Architecture unit. 

Last year, her class collaborated with Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation to help develop a plan for a new Chinese Garden. Their concept was approved and moved to the next phase. Two years ago, Huang’s students also conceptualized design ideas to reconstruct the outdoor gathering space for the Westminster Village senior living community in West Lafayette.

In addition, in 2022 her students had the chance to envision the future of Purdue’s campus by pitching stormwater management and green infrastructure solutions. Their design of the Agriculture Mall was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Campus RainWorks Challenge. 

Huang created these immersive experiences to help students understand how to interact with clients, communicate clearly and sell their ideas. 

“Students always say the whole engagement process is really eye-opening and inspiring and that it teaches them new things outside of regular lectures,” she says. 

This inventiveness and deep enthusiasm for her students’ journeys and their success are among the reasons Huang won a 2025 Exceptional Early Career Teaching Award. 

“Teaching has always been my dream,” she says. The award means a lot to her because it was chosen by students and affirms her commitment to using design to reimagine city spaces — especially to create more quality green spaces for communities that need them. 

“I think we are really land artists, and we are trying to bring people closer to nature and create beautiful outdoor environments to improve their physical and mental health,” Huang says. 

She particularly values engagement with children in K-12 public schools, seniors, women and people of color, among other groups. Huang believes their input enhances design approaches. This is also an element she asks students to reflect upon, knowing they’ll meet with clients from different backgrounds and with various approaches and opinions.  

Her primary goal is to equip students with the skills and mentorship they need to thrive at Purdue and beyond. 

“I always tell my students that if there’s one thing I can teach them, it’s that design has power, and we can use it to address challenges on the ground,” Huang says.  

“Their homework has value that can really impact communities.”

“Their homework has value that can really impact communities.

Yiwei Huang

Assistant professor of landscape architecture in Purdue’s College of Agriculture