Five Boilermakers reflect on what it was like to be a Black student-athlete at Purdue

Pioneers.

There have been many in Purdue Athletics history. But perhaps none more important than those among the first Black student-athletes to compete for the Boilermakers.

The list of five former Black Purdue student-athletes below is just a sample of the stories of many who forged their path. Each agrees that Black History Month is the time to honor and celebrate the diverse experiences and perspectives of their time at Purdue. It is also time to educate.

“I think the celebration of all history is important, and it is important at least for one month that people take the opportunity to study our Black heritage, our culture,” says Roland Parrish, a standout track athlete at Purdue from 1971-75.

“We all had experiences, and we all had challenges.”

Willie Merriweather, men’s basketball, 1957-59

A teammate of Oscar Robertson at Crispus Attucks High School, Merriweather was a standout player for coach Ray Eddy. He was good enough to be inducted into the Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame, averaging 20 points per contest in his senior year. He played at Purdue during the first large influx of Black basketball players, crossing paths with Lamar Lundy, Wilson “Jake“ Eison, Harvey Austin and Charlie Lyons.

“It was great to have those guys as teammates, and I had a good experience at Purdue,” says Merriweather, who went on to have a four-decade career as an educator in Detroit. “We were treated well as athletes. We adjusted to how things were then, even when told by Coach Eddy that they couldn’t simultaneously play more than a couple of us (African Americans).”

Socializing was not easy for Black people on Purdue’s campus in the 1950s, when students of different races were not treated equally.

“So we focused on our studies, and I was proud to make the dean’s list,” Merriweather says. “It meant a lot to me to be a good student.”

Merriweather has enjoyed watching all the changes that have occurred for Black athletes and all athletes in the past 60 years.

“It’s a whole different world today for the kids,” Merriweather says. “I am glad most people celebrate our history. It’s not perfect by any means, but having the opportunity to play when I did, I had some role in making things better for those that came after me.”

Billy McKoy, football, 1966-69

William (Billy) McKoy was a standout defensive end for coach Jack Mollenkopf and played for Boilermaker teams that compiled a 24-6 record from 1967-69 and won a Big Ten championship. Additionally, he was part of the first program in college football to beat Notre Dame three consecutive seasons.

Coming to Purdue from the segregated South was initially a shock for McKoy, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The same school had produced Herman Gilliam to Purdue a year earlier. Purdue football had been integrated in the 1950s and produced Lamar Lundy, the only Boilermaker to earn MVP honors in football and basketball in the same school year.

“I credit my good experience to Coach Mollenkopf because the team was like a family, and he created that environment,” says McKoy, who went on to play in the NFL for the Denver Broncos. “It was seamless. Despite the racially charged times, our team had no racial hiccups.”

The environment on campus was mostly a positive experience for McKoy, although he recalls a few unpleasant interactions with fellow residents of Wiley Hall and professors who didn’t always embrace his perspective.

“My high school teachers had me ready for college, so I was confident I could do college work,” says McKoy, who ended up with a several-decade career in human resources and as senior vice president for operations at the YMCA in Atlanta. “But it was an adjustment for all of us.”

The importance of Black History Month is not lost on McKoy.

“I am a glass half-full person, but there are some places where people are trying to change the narrative of our history, and that is concerning to me as it should be to everyone,” McKoy says. “It remains unfortunate that we are still hearing too many times, ‘This is the first African American to do this, this is the first African American to do that.’ I thought we might be further along in my lifetime.”

McKoy cites one of his best moments as his long-time relationship with a teammate who had never met a Black person before he came to Purdue.

“The fact that we are still friends today is important to me,” McKoy says. “One of the things about ‘ball’ is you had to figure out how to win the game that was in front of you. Winning, however you define it, was what it was all about. That helped me survive and thrive at Purdue.”

Roland Parrish, men’s track & field, 1971-75

A native of Hammond, Indiana, Parrish came to Purdue on a full-ride track scholarship. After growing up in a Black neighborhood, the middle-distance runner attended Hammond High School, which was only about 3% Black.

“Coming to Purdue wasn’t the culture shock for me as it was for many people of color,” says Parrish, who was voted team captain and twice earned team MVP honors. “Back then we didn’t have Black coaches for mentors, but I was very fortunate to have Dr. Cornell Bell, the head of Purdue’s Business Opportunity Program (BOP). He was a no-nonsense man who didn’t let you make excuses.”

Parrish credits Bell and others for helping him be disciplined. He studied, went to track practice and was a musician for the Second Baptist Church in Lafayette, where he played keyboard on weekends.

“I believe in the saying, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,” Parrish says. “When I break it all down, it is really that simple.”

In Parrish’s mind, Black History Month is a time to recognize the people that came before. In athletics, Parrish was forever touched by the life and times of Leroy Keyes, Purdue’s two-time All-American football player who came to campus six years before Parrish.

“I always looked up to Leroy and I stand on the shoulders of those who walked in my shoes when things weren’t quite as evolved as they were when I was in school,” Parrish says. “Even 40-plus years later, Purdue continues to evolve. I like what I see out of the university regarding race, but there are always paths to travel for improvement.”

Parrish has had a stellar business career, which includes owning more than two dozen McDonald’s franchises in North Texas near his Dallas home. He has given time and treasure back to Purdue in many areas, including funding a renovation of the former Management and Economic Library a dozen years ago. He has also funded a scholarship in Bell’s memory and remains devoted to the Keyes family after Keyes’ passing in 2021.

“There were challenges for Blacks when I was at Purdue,” Parrish says. “But I look at all the programs available to Black kids today and all the role models that Purdue’s athletes have access to, and that makes me hopeful that we are making progress.”

Pat Harris, women’s basketball, 1979-82

The study of Black history has to be more than one month. My message to kids is: ‘Learn how we got here and volunteer.’

Pat Harris
Purdue women’s basketball (1979-82)

With a reputation for calling it as she sees it, Harris is happy to embrace her trailblazer status in the history of the Boilermaker women’s basketball program. She admits she was as much a pioneer in women’s sports as a Black athlete at Purdue.

“Because women’s basketball was still in its infancy when I came to Purdue (it began officially in 1975-76), I guess you can call me a pioneer,” Harris says. “Women’s sports weren’t embraced by the athletic administration at the time.

“Years after graduating, I remained involved with Purdue Athletics because athletics director Morgan Burke embraced the growth of women’s sports, in part with his advisory council, which I was proud to serve on. He brought Purdue into the 20th century. So my challenge was as much being a female athlete as it was being one of the first Black basketball players at Purdue.

“I credit our head coach, Ruth Jones, and assistant, Nancy Cross, who also coached field hockey at Purdue, for moving things forward to build the foundation for women’s basketball and women’s sports at Purdue.”

Harris was raised in a traditional Black home with hard-working parents, but like Parrish, attended a predominantly white high school in Columbus, Ohio. Yet, she embraces the necessity of teaching Black history. Not just to Black kids, but everyone.

“Black History Month is very important as kids aren’t taught it as much as they should be. I worry that today we are in a tenuous political time, and we are taking some steps backward as a society when it comes to race relations and understanding one another. The study of Black history has to be more than one month. My message to kids is: ‘Learn how we got here and volunteer.’”

Harris practices what she preaches. She freely gives of her time in Indianapolis, her home for the past 40 years, while continuing various roles in administration and business. A long-time women’s basketball season ticket holder, Harris frequently makes the trip up I-65 from Indianapolis and is forever connected to the university.

“I had a very good experience at Purdue,” Harris says. “My mentors were my parents, who raised me in an environment where I was not given many extra things but was encouraged to take advantage of opportunities. So, I did. I took full advantage.”

Cathey Tyree-Smith, women’s basketball and track & field, 1984-87

In a word, Tyree-Smith had a “happy” experience during her days as a Boilermaker from 1984-87. It didn’t hurt that she was one of the most talented dual-sport athletes in Purdue history.

“I loved my playing and competition days at Purdue,” Tyree says from her home in Deming, New Mexico.

A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Tyree-Smith was selected Purdue’s Female Athlete of the Year and the team MVP for both basketball and track & field in 1987. In track, Tyree-Smith was a three-time All-American and Drake Relays champion in the heptathlon.

She also was the Big Ten record-holder in the heptathlon, a record she held when she was one of the earliest inductees into the Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame 26 years ago. Tyree was a three-time honorable mention All-Big Ten selection on the basketball court, averaging 10.8 points and 7.4 rebounds during her four-year career.

“I always felt welcome and comfortable at Purdue,” Tyree-Smith says. “When I was recruited, Coach (Ruth) Jones was the only one who would let me play two sports, which made choosing Purdue easy.

“Purdue was intimidating, but not because of race. It was intimidating because it was such a big university and a big place. Growing up where I did, nothing ever bothered me. I was always around people with whom I could easily blend in. I never had controversy regarding race or anything like that. It was hard to go through Coach Jones getting sick and having several coaches, but our team stuck together.”

One of the first six freshmen to earn full scholarships in women’s basketball, Tyree-Smith always remains grateful.

What is the message of Black History Month from Tyree-Smith’s perspective?

“Going to Purdue for any person of color is very prestigious,” Tyree-Smith says. “I learned to keep my head level through everything. I realized that others before me didn’t have the opportunities I did, and I appreciate those who came before me.”

Written by: Alan Karpick, akarpick@goldandblack.com

Previous experiences with mentors drive Purdue professor in Indianapolis to help her students succeed

That could mean sharing life or career advice after they graduate. It could mean staying in touch via LinkedIn and helping them make contacts that can advance their careers.

Or it could involve providing opportunities to teach or mentor the next generation of students who come through the project management education program the associate professor oversees.

However the “forever” aspect of her position takes shape, the bottom line is that Reed Hughes — known to her students as “Dr. K.” — feels a responsibility to help her students achieve long-term success. Maybe that’s because she recognizes how a teacher’s guidance helped create a path for her own upward trajectory.

Childhood lessons

Reed Hughes was raised in Wilson City, Missouri, a rural sharecropper’s village where “nobody had much, but it was still a great way to grow up,” she says.

What made it great?

For one thing, she came to understand at an early age that community is important. While playing every day with her friends from sunup to sundown, she learned how to form close personal bonds with her neighbors.

The setting also taught her valuable lessons about empathy.

The youngest of five siblings, Reed Hughes was the only child in the family whose chores didn’t include going out into the field to chop beans. She remembers watching her older siblings put on two pairs of socks and then wrap their feet with plastic bread bags to keep them dry while working in the muddy fields.

“I could tell it wasn’t easy,” she says.

Despite the poverty that surrounded her, Reed Hughes says her childhood was a happy one. However, her earliest years in school were a struggle because of what she now realizes was an undiagnosed case of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

She excelled in math but had difficulty reading at grade level until a sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Stapleton, managed to connect with her in a way that previous teachers had not.

(My sixth grade teacher) saw something in me, and I was inspired, and she probably taught me some tools that I didn’t have and no one else really took the time to help me with. I’ve been a great student ever since then.

Katrenia Reed Hughes
Purdue organizational leadership professor in Indianapolis

“She saw something in me, and I was inspired, and she probably taught me some tools that I didn’t have and no one else really took the time to help me with,” Reed Hughes says. “I’ve been a great student ever since then.”

Such a great student, in fact, that attending college was an easy decision once making the school honor roll became a standard outcome starting that year with Mrs. Stapleton. And once Reed Hughes launched a collegiate career, she kept adding new knowledge and credentials.

She followed her high school guidance counselor’s advice and pursued a psychology degree at Missouri State University, then added a master’s and doctorate in psychology at Indiana State University and a master’s in business administration at Butler University.

As a first-generation college student, she completed that academic journey with virtually no advance preparation on what to expect about attending a university.

“My mom loved the idea that her daughter was going to college, and so did my dad, but they still didn’t really understand things like why you couldn’t come home sometimes and stuff like that. Or just even basic stuff,” Reed Hughes says. “It kind of felt like everyone else had a book that told them how to do these things, but I didn’t.”

She figured it out, though, and worked at the Purdue University Student Health Center immediately after completing a doctorate in clinical psychology (PsyD) degree. She transitioned from the field of mental health to the corporate world while completing her MBA, spending the next decade helping people and organizations effectively change human behavior to meet business goals. But many aspects of the university environment eventually beckoned her back to higher ed:

The energetic community on campus.

The ability to build personal connections with students and colleagues.

The opportunity to share knowledge and help others.

“When I left corporate, I said I was going home,” she recalls.

Building essential career tools

At Purdue, Reed Hughes found a place where her organizational leadership and coaching skills could make a meaningful difference.

She committed to improving student success and retention. And she has done the same for her co-workers — particularly those from marginalized backgrounds — by working with senior faculty to constructively mentor their junior counterparts.

But as valuable as Reed Hughes’ campus service has been, perhaps her greatest contribution has been the success of the project management program — particularly with the project management (PM) certificate curriculum that helps students build the skills necessary to fill positions that have become increasingly vital to the global economy.

A 2021 study by the Project Management Institute estimated that by 2030 approximately 102 million jobs would exist across the globe for project managers and those who possess PM skills. The study further indicated that 25 million new project managers would be necessary by 2030 to meet demand as more industries become projectized.

Demand is especially high in fields like software development and analysis, manufacturing and construction, information and publishing, and finance and insurance. Reed Hughes attributes the field’s expanded presence to businesses’ observations that projects were more likely to fail when a project manager was not present to facilitate communication between project stakeholders and generally keep things on track.

“Do they meet their outcomes? Do they meet their goals?” Reed Hughes asks. “The percentage of that is so horrible that maybe 10 years ago, people started to see, ‘Oh, project managers increase our success. And if our initiatives and our operational projects that we need to get done, if those are successful, then our business is actually more efficient.’”

Do they meet their outcomes? Do they meet their goals? The percentage of that is so horrible that maybe 10 years ago, people started to see, ‘Oh, project managers increase our success.’

Katrenia Reed Hughes
Purdue organizational leadership professor in Indianapolis

In addition to the technical tools that Reed Hughes teaches her students how to use, she also promotes skills like efficient communication, leadership, relationship building, strategic thinking and problem-solving that are essential to the success of most complex projects. Those skills are useful even if a student chooses not to seek Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

“With the graduate-level certificate, I’ve already had several students who left the class immediately or sometime after that take the PMP exam, and they’ve all passed,” says Reed Hughes, a certified PMP herself. “And then some of them didn’t take the PMP, but they were able to go out and market their skill set. And when I say that, I mean if you go to an interview and you say you know project management and you don’t, and there’s someone in the room who does, you can make a fool of yourself. But these students, they know what they’re doing, and they know what they’re talking about, and they can go in there and speak confidently about it.”

Mentorship matters

Reed Hughes’ service to her students goes far beyond the walls of the classroom. She is actively involved in multiple mentorship initiatives, including as a founding member of the Midwest Experiences in Mentoring Excellence (MEME) collaborative that started at the university level and has since gone national.

“I’m very excited because we showed that we could have an impact at a smaller level with very little money, and now we’re expanding that and taking it out and testing it within industry,” she says of MEME’s efforts to support scholars from underrepresented groups who are part of STEM faculties that teach and mentor diverse groups of students.

Effective mentorship is a cause that is close to Reed Hughes’ heart because of her own lived experiences. She benefited from positive interactions with many mentors, but also recalls being a mentee in collegiate and corporate environments where the absence of common ground contributed to strained relationships.

She understands better than most that those personal connections can make a difference for someone who simply needs guidance on how to focus their talents to achieve their goals. It’s why she mentors students — and she’s good at it, too, having won the 2023 Outstanding Graduate and Professional Student Mentor award — and it’s why she teaches job skills that should have long-term viability.

In both cases, Reed Hughes finds it energizing to support and affirm others, giving them the tools to succeed in places where their unique abilities can provide value.

“I tell my students you can do any project management job,” she says. “You’re following a tried-and-true process that’s proven to be successful.”

Boilermakers given rare opportunity to send two crews on back-to-back Mars Desert Research Station missions

Most Purdue students spend their winter break at home with family and friends, soaking up the good tidings and cheer of the holiday season.

Gabriel Skowronek and 13 other Boilermakers spent two weeks at the closest thing to Mars on Earth, the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS).

“The uniqueness of the opportunity — I just couldn’t pass it up,” says Skowronek, a senior majoring in physics and astronomy. “Being together as a team at MDRS during a time when we normally might be back home with family and friends really contributed to the community-building aspect of the mission.”

The Mars Society, which owns and operates MDRS, granted Purdue a rare opportunity to send two crews on two-week, back-to-back missions. Purdue’s missions to MDRS were timed to coincide with the university’s winter break: Crew 288 was on-site Dec. 9-23, 2023, and Crew 289 was there Dec. 24, 2023, to Jan. 6, 2024.

The two crews of Boilermaker analog astronauts comprised a diverse mix of undergraduate, master’s and PhD students, plus a research scientist, an alumnus and a Purdue University Online graduate student.

Crew 288 executive officer Riley McGlasson, a PhD student in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences, says that the MDRS location itself makes the mission worth it, no matter the time of year. “I’ve spent a fair amount of time in this part of Utah. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. And I will take any excuse to go back,” she says.

“As someone who studies Mars, you really can’t ask for a more perfect analog,” she adds.

Water and Spam

Time with loved ones is just one of the sacrifices that MDRS analog astronauts make. They are also constrained in their living conditions. Food is dehydrated or in a can. And water is limited to 400 gallons total, which must last seven people for two weeks.

This became an opportunity, not a problem.

“Our daily usage of water was less than anyone expected,” says Sara Paule, an online master’s degree student in communication and Crew 289 executive officer/crew journalist. “We got really good at washing dishes and being mindful of waste.”

She adds, “All the food is dehydrated, so if you want to cook with any kind of vegetables, you must soak them before you can use them. But if you’re smart, you can take that water and then reuse it. It can become your risotto liquid or your pasta water. One day we had very blue blueberry pancakes because we added the blueberry water to the pancake mix. And they were yummy.”

Hunter Vannier, a PhD student in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and Crew 288 geologist, says conserving water is a habit he plans to carry forward. “I’ve been thinking about my own practices since returning from MDRS. I am so aware now of the amount of water I consume,” he says.

Vannier made the most of the station’s limited food pantry, too, adding several recipes to the community cookbook, which resides in the habitat kitchen and gets handed down from mission to mission.

His signature dish? “I made Spam fried rice — salty deliciousness.”

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Cozy quarters

The MDRS habitat, affectionately known as “the Hab,” is a two-story, 8-meter-wide cylindrical building that one crew member describes as “cozy.” It’s also home base to the seven astronauts for their two-week mission.

“Everyone had their own individual sleeping quarters, and spaces were small, but it was doable. The overall habitat was compact, but in a cozy way,” Paule says.

The close environment created many opportunities for building community and teamwork, which is an essential part of the MDRS experience.

“The friendships I saw develop during the mission were heartwarming to me,” says Crew 289 commander Adriana Brown (BS environmental geoscience, ’22). 

“People getting along makes my job a lot easier, but hearing engaging conversations about everything from the nature of reality to favorite karaoke songs and watching the team coalesce in real time was special,” she says.

Vannier’s crew had a similar experience. “There was no conflict at all. We were extremely cohesive and had a lot of fun with one another,” he says. “I think one of the biggest disagreements was a debate about the validity of the world building in Harry Potter compared to other sci-fi and fantasy fiction.”

He adds, “Everyone seemed to understand common courtesy and how to operate in a group. When there were chores to be done, no one waited for someone else to do it. They just immediately volunteered.”

Novel research

In addition to experiencing what harmonious daily life might be like for an astronaut on Mars, one of the most compelling reasons for MDRS participation is the opportunity to conduct rigorous field studies and research under the constraints of a high-fidelity, simulated Mars mission.

“For me, it all comes back to why I came to Purdue,” says Jesus Meza Galvan, a PhD student in aerospace engineering and Crew 288 engineer.

“Designing and building space hardware is what I want to do,” he says. “One of the big selling points of Purdue is that we are the Cradle of Astronauts. To have something like MDRS, where you’re actually getting exposure to practical problems that some space missions would face, is a phenomenal opportunity.”

Crew 289 astronomer and health/safety officer Skowronek agrees, “With my background in physics and astronomy, I delve into developments in planetary science. Just getting an opportunity to actually be at MDRS and see what it’s like to do novel research was really exciting.”

“Novel research” is a good description of the work that the two crews performed during their time at MDRS. Every project worked toward addressing real-life situations that future missions to Mars may face.

Designing and building space hardware is what I want to do. … To have something like MDRS, where you’re actually getting exposure to practical problems that some space missions would face, is a phenomenal opportunity.

Jesus Meza GalvaN A PhD student in aerospace engineering and Crew 288 engineer

Structured but not rigid

The MDRS simulation is structured, but not rigid. Crews are usually composed of seven members who fulfill the roles of commander, health and safety officer, greenhab officer, crew engineer and crew journalist. Other roles can also be assigned depending on crew members’ research interests (crew geologist, crew biologist). And a single crew member may serve in multiple roles.

Within this framework, each scientist proposes a research project that goes through an approval and then refinement process.

“I originally just proposed a dust coverage project,” Skowronek says. “But I have done work with photometry data analysis, which led to adding a secondary photometry research study using the MDRS telescopes.”

Meza likewise pivoted slightly with his research. “When I proposed my research project, I was fairly ambitious,” he says. “I wanted to make a solar panel at the station. But in talking to the MDRS directors, I learned there are a lot of safety considerations. You can’t have harmful chemicals, things like acids, which are sometimes required in fabrication. I had to find feasible solutions for this problem, so my project definitely evolved over time.”

Amazon doesn’t deliver to Mars

Meza’s pre-trip revisions point to a vital aspect of the MDRS simulation — the ability to problem-solve in a limited environment. Astronauts can’t run to the local hardware store or place an online order on Mars. They must use available resources to diagnose and solve problems.

“At one point we noticed that the furnace didn’t seem to be working,” Crew 289 executive officer Paule says. “It was a windy day and the temperature inside the Hab started dropping. So we had to get on comms with the MDRS director, and he had to walk us through what to do to fix the problem.”

The crew also had to innovate when they noticed that humidity levels were getting dangerously low in the greenhab environment. Several student research projects, including one simulating the effects of Mars radiation on plants, required living specimens.

“Our efforts were led by Riya Raj, our greenhab officer and crew biologist,” Crew 289 commander Brown noted. “But the whole team pitched in.”

After trying several solutions that didn’t work, Raj came up with the idea of wrapping the plants with a clear plastic film and then misting inside of them regularly. “You could see a little pocket of humidity develop right around the plant,” Brown says.

Not all problem-solving opportunities were so serious.

“This is a very silly example,” McGlasson, 288 executive officer, says. “But we had an inflatable baby Yoda in the Hab for the holidays and the plug broke. And it’s not like you can ship yourself a new one, so our crew engineer (Meza) took it to the engineering bay and fixed it.

“Even for small things you have to be self-sustaining and figure it out if something fails.”

Rocks and robots

Extravehicular activities (EVAs) are the foundation of field research at MDRS. They take crews into the surrounding area, and they require the most from participants in terms of simulation. Analog astronauts must suit up in protective gear and carry a weighted pack before leaving the Hab via a simulated air lock.

Among other research activities, Crew 289 collected 90 oyster fossils and 93 sediment samples during their EVAs. Brown, who graduated from Purdue in 2022 with a degree in environmental geoscience, will use them in her doctoral research at the University of Michigan.

“I’m very grateful to my crewmates for going with me into the field and being willing to kneel in the dirt and feed samples into tiny tubes for a long period of time,” she says.

Crew 288 completed 10 EVAs, each lasting four hours to mirror oxygen capacity on Mars. Vannier, crew geologist, used some of these EVAs to train other team members how to implement classic geologic sampling techniques comparable to those that astronauts are instructed to use on the moon. The goal was to create a consistent workflow in the investigation area.

“There has to be two or three people present, each with well-defined roles,” Vannier says. “The EVAs I led were especially helpful in understanding time management. On another planetary surface, every second is precious.”

For her EVA research, McGlasson used a 450-megahertz ground-penetrating radar to measure the moisture content and subsurface structure in the top meter of the soil surrounding MDRS. Her research had an extra layer of complexity added to it; she broke her leg right before leaving for the mission.

“Even with my broken leg, I was still able to participate in EVAs. My total distance walked ended up being 10 miles,” she says.

In March, McGlasson will present a poster on her MDRS research, co-authored with Vannier, at a conference on planetary science.

“Another thing Crew 289 was excited about was our robotics experiment,” commander Brown says. “We had a small origami robot named Elf that we took out into the field to test different resistances. To our knowledge, origami robotics has not been tested at all at MDRS. And so we were able to do something really new and cutting edge and something that will be beneficial on Mars.”

Crew 288’s fieldwork with robotics was successful, too. They used drones to make deliveries from the Hab to a field work site and back.

Every mission is different

What are Purdue’s next steps at MDRS?

“We have already been invited back,” says Cesare Guariniello, Purdue research scientist and commander of Crew 288. “Our next big decision is how many rotations we want to request and when to do it. Until now, we’ve always gone over the winter holidays, but some students have expressed interest in going to MDRS in the spring.”

One thing is clear, new missions will mean new discoveries.

“This is my sixth mission to MDRS,” Guariniello says. “I like the fact that even after six times, every mission, every crew is different.”

Myson Burch, an IBM research scientist, uses skills he sharpened at Purdue to address complex health issues

As he reflects upon his journey in computer science, Dr. Myson Burch can pinpoint the experience that transformed the discipline from something he enjoyed to a purpose-filled passion.

That opportunity, where Burch (PhD computer science ’23) discovered how his computer and mathematics skills could improve health outcomes, inspired him to pursue graduate study at Purdue. And it eventually guided him toward a career at IBM research, where his team’s innovative work in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies will advance the quality of health care on a massive scale.

All Burch needed was a spark, and it ignited as an undergraduate student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) when he assisted professor Julia Arciero on an applied mathematics project that addressed patients’ vascular conditions. Arciero’s computational modeling project, conducted in partnership with Indiana University Health, provided an exciting first glimpse of how Burch’s expertise could affect positive change.

“At the time I was like, ‘OK, computer science is cool. There are a lot of different applications,’ but I never really had my hands on anything or saw the fruits of impacting something or someone,” Burch says. “Once I was a part of that project with her, it really opened my eyes to seeing that this can really impact somebody and make a change, and it was something that I really wanted to do.

“It led me to pursue my PhD at Purdue and drove me to work on how computer science impacts health and how technology can improve our outlook on human health and disease,” Burch says.

The ripple effects from that initial inspiration will likely resonate for generations to come.

Influencing the future of health care

Today, Burch works as a research scientist at IBM, helping the company build tools that will accelerate scientific discovery in health and life sciences — including prediction of complex diseases and disorders, as well as drug discovery.

Burch’s role at IBM builds upon his work at Purdue, where he created a technique to use the volumes of available health information to more accurately identify genetic markers that make individuals more susceptible to conditions like Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and cardiovascular disease.

Only now, he’s looking for other applications where he can apply the research tools he built at Purdue under mentor Petros Drineas, professor and associate head of computer science.

“At IBM, they’ve really challenged me and pushed me to broaden that aspect of health and life sciences, saying, ‘You know, genomics isn’t the only aspect where you can apply your skill set and your toolkit,’” says Burch, who served as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow while conducting genomics research at Purdue. “And so I’m really looking at other things with drug discovery, with predictive models and with generative models for building small molecules and foundation models and different things like that. I’m stretching my domain knowledge, but still using the same skill set built at Purdue.”

In the short term, Burch is excited about seeing IBM partners like Cleveland Clinic deploy the AI applications his company builds to immediately improve patients’ lives. But he also sees significant long-term promise in his team’s work.

“IBM, in particular, has had a huge push in trying to be cutting-edge with quantum and explore how far we can push those limits with that type of technology and that type of science,” he says. “That puts us at an interesting moment because I think we’re pioneering this new technology and we’re pioneering these new applications that are really just at their inception in terms of applying or theorizing.”

The pioneering aspect of his team’s work is one that Burch finds especially meaningful. He acknowledges that AI’s rapid emergence has created widespread concern over technology’s future role in our daily lives. That’s why he says it’s important for innovators to responsibly consider the potential of the tools they create before turning them loose upon the public.

“One of the reasons why I got into research the way I did was because I wanted to be front and center of something that was going to create a change and going to create an impact in my community and really do something that’s important,” Burch says. “When you’re in research and working on some of these tools, you definitely feel that. You feel that significance and you feel that importance and you feel different ways that you can contribute to these different things.
 
“I definitely appreciate being able to work at IBM and not be a bystander to some of these changes and really be a part of affecting the change and being a part of that development.”

One of the reasons why I got into research the way I did was because I wanted to be front and center of something that was going to create a change.

Myson Burch PhD computer science ’23

Building community

Burch’s aversion to being a bystander revealed itself in numerous ways during his time at Purdue — and not just when creating tools that can change health care as we know it today.

He was one of just three Black PhD students in computer science when he enrolled at Purdue in 2017, and two of them completed their graduate studies shortly after his arrival. However, Burch says one of those students, Dr. Amber Johnson, made an enormous impression during the short time that they overlapped in West Lafayette.

Johnson — the first Black woman to earn a PhD in computer science at Purdue — taught Burch that if a community he desires to be part of does not exist somewhere, he can always work to create that community himself.

“It’s difficult to succeed in a space that you don’t see yourself in or you don’t see faculty of color. You just really don’t see those pathways exist for you because you don’t see yourself in the space,” Burch says. “She really imparted on me to find success in that, embracing the challenge of being the first. If you don’t see yourself there or you don’t have a previous example to lean on, then be a trailblazer.

“I really looked up to her quite a lot in terms of all the things that she’s been able to achieve and all the things that she accomplished while she was at Purdue and beyond,” he adds. “I kind of homed in on that and tried to view it less as an obstacle and more as something that I wanted to achieve personally.”

If you don’t see yourself there or you don’t have a previous example to lean on, then be a trailblazer.

Myson Burch
PhD computer science ’23

And so he got to work. He worked with another mentor, Lillian Evans, the Department of Computer Science’s former diversity specialist, to expand outreach to underrepresented minority students. He joined Purdue’s Black Graduate Student Association, serving as vice president and undergraduate outreach chair. And he served on the Purdue Equity Task Force, whose goal is to remove barriers to success of Boilermaker students, faculty and staff of color.

“I’m proud of the work that (the Black Graduate Student Association) did, and I’m really glad that I was able to get involved in a community like that because I think you have to develop that kind of community and that sort of support system for other minorities to really gravitate toward the program. You have to develop those cohorts,” Burch says.

Burch also worked outside the university to help other students potentially follow in his footsteps. He served as a mentor under Dr. Temi Adeoye with the Heads Up Tutoring and Life Skills Program, which helps Greater Lafayette youth living in government-assisted housing complexes pursue their academic, professional and personal goals.

“I loved being part of that space, and Temi allowed me to come in as a mentor and encourage building life skills,” Burch says. “In that type of work, you want to be a good role model and a good example for others to lean on and follow. Hopefully they’ll do even better and achieve things that I wasn’t able to achieve in my time at Purdue and go above and beyond.”

As Burch’s journey in computer science proves, you never know what might happen when a bright young person sees an opportunity to make a difference.

Abbey Ellis has made her mark on the court halfway around the world from home

Libby Ellis says her daughter, Abbey, avoided drama as a child and was hesitant to speak up for herself.

“We would go to a fast-food restaurant, and if they forgot to put something on her sandwich, she would tell me,” her mom says. “I told her to go and get it fixed, but she would just eat it the way it was. I’m more of a confronter, but that didn’t fit her personality then.”

Watching the 5-foot-6 Ellis now compete as the smallest player on the court for Purdue women’s basketball contradicts that notion. She regularly throws her body around on the court, shows her emotions to the crowd, and isn’t afraid to give a questioning glance or gesture to a referee she feels is in error.

“Purdue has made her grow. It’s been amazing to watch. Not everything has gone smoothly, but she’s figured out how to get through it,” Libby says with pride.

Court beginnings

Abbey, the second of four daughters of Martin and Libby Ellis, first set foot on a basketball court in Melbourne, Australia, at age 6.

“Mom put me on the court with my best friend then — and she’s still my best friend — and I immediately liked it,” Ellis says. “It wasn’t until I was 13 or 14 that other girls started growing taller than I was, so my coach decided then to put me at point guard.”

Ellis also played netball, a game similar to basketball but with key differences. Played on a rectangular court with seven players per team, teams shoot a ball into a net that does not have a backboard. There is no dribbling, bouncing or running while possessing the ball.

Ellis says netball helped her learn to see the floor and anticipate what would happen. Her mother agrees.

“Footwork is very important in netball, and learning how to play angles is vital,” Libby says. “Given her lack of height, Abbey had to learn how to maneuver around the court in both sports. Each coach wanted her to specialize in their particular sport, but she was determined to play both.”

One popular sport in Australia that Abbey was not permitted to play was Australian Rules Football, a game with strong similarities to rugby known for its physical nature. Ironically, Martin was an Australian Rules Football official who worked 244 matches in 13 years, including the 2001 Grand Final.

“We had to protect her from getting hurt so she could play her other sports,” Libby says.

Coming to America

Around the age of 15, Abbey was watching the NCAA Tournament on television and started to get the itch to take part in March Madness. She and her family had been to the United States a few years earlier to visit Disneyland, and she went on tour through the Australian National Youth system to play in Dallas in 2018.

This is what she wanted to do, and she had been gifted with the talent and opportunity to do it.

Libby ellis
Abbey’s mother

She began setting up Zoom sessions with coaches to find her best fit for college and committed to play for Cal Poly, a member of the Big West Conference located in San Luis Obispo between San Jose and Santa Barbara.

For Abbey, the move to college was a long plane flight. For Libby, it was a difficult time to let go.

“I was thrilled for her, but right before she left, I was a mess,” admits Libby, who has delivered babies as a midwife for more than two decades. “I eventually had an epiphany that I was spoiling her moment. This is what she wanted to do, and she had been gifted with the talent and opportunity to do it.”

Abbey adapted well, starting 52 of her 53 games at Cal Poly. She averaged more than 15 points per game, shot better than 86% from the free-throw line, and was named to the Big West All-Freshman team in year one and was a first-team All-Big West selection as a sophomore.

She was able to return home for a short time after every season. The most difficult time came after her freshman year, when she was quarantined for 12 days in a hotel room because of the COVID pandemic. “I thought I was part of a social experiment after about 10 days,” she admits.

Next giant leap

After her sophomore season, Ellis decided to enter the transfer portal.

“I wanted to push myself to get better, and I felt I was ready to play against great players,” she says. “Purdue was the first team to reach out.”

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Katie Gearlds was hired in March 2021 to the Boilermaker coaching staff with the plan to become the head coach for the 2022-23 season. The timeline was moved up when Sharon Versyp announced her retirement in September.

Gearlds had been in contact with Ellis, knowing Purdue had weaknesses to address. “We knew we needed to add a guard who could score, and Abbey was a great fit,” Gearlds says. “We liked her bubbly personality and the fact that she had been in pressure situations at Cal Poly. When she got here, she was exactly who we thought she was.”

Ellis admits she was somewhat taken aback by the flat geography and the cold of her new Midwest home. She hadn’t seen snow before coming to Purdue, and the coldest weather she typically saw in her home country never dipped below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

It took her a few games to get acclimated to the on-court differences between the Big West and the Big Ten, most notably the more physical nature of the games. But she had a solid rookie season with the Boilermakers, averaging 11.5 points and three assists per game and earning All-Big Ten honorable mention status.

Ellis continued her improvement in the 2022-23 season, again averaging better than 11 points a game. She led the Big Ten and was third in the nation in free-throw percentage at 91.7% and was again named All-Big Ten honorable mention. The Boilermakers played in their first NCAA Tournament game since 2017, winning 19 games overall.

Bonus year

Ellis decided to stay and play a fifth year at Purdue, as all student-athletes were allotted an extra year of competition after the 2019-20 season ended prematurely because of the pandemic. She leads the team in scoring this year and cracked the 1,000-point mark as a player at Purdue, becoming the 36th player in program history to do so, after scoring 818 points at Cal Poly.

Her parents, aunt, and uncle will fly to Indiana to participate in Senior Day activities. Ellis has relished her time playing for the Boilermakers, and particularly in Mackey Arena.

“It’s such a great family atmosphere. It’s electric when the arena gets loud, and we really feed off each other,” she says.

She’ll wear another ribbon in her hair that night, just as she has in every game since her youth. Libby sends her several options each year, and Abbey selects the color for every game.

She’ll undoubtedly throw her body around the court with reckless abandon, as she’s done throughout her career. She’ll graduate with an early childhood education degree in May and would like to continue to play basketball, most likely in Europe, before beginning a teaching career either in Australia or the United States.

Whatever her future holds, Gearlds says Ellis’ legacy as a Boilermaker is secure. She came in as a transfer the same year as Jeanae Terry (from Illinois). Along with Madison Layden and Cal Baptist transfer Caitlyn Harper, that quartet provided a solid senior class for this year’s team.

“We haven’t won as many games this season as we wanted, but this group has left our program a much better place,” Gearlds says. “When you look at culture, our locker room, and our practices, you can see we’ve added good people.

“Abbey is right at the top of that list. She’s adored by the community, and she knows no strangers.”

As a result, chances are she gets her restaurant food to order these days.

Written by: Tim Newton

Eric Jakubiak remodeled his basement bathroom in gold and black during a pandemic quarantine

You wouldn’t necessarily look at the photo and understand its significance unless you were a Boilermaker — and even then, you’d need to be Eric Jakubiak or one of his friends to know the full story.

The photo features a group of college-aged boys wearing loud Hawaiian shirts and posing with a mustachioed, middle-aged gentleman wearing an outfit that emphasizes the black in Purdue’s signature gold-and-black color scheme.

The boys wearing Hawaiian shirts are Jakubiak and some of his Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity brothers from Purdue. “They did a blackout game at Mackey Arena for a basketball game and, for whatever silly reason, we all decided to wear Hawaiian shirts so we’d stick out like a sore thumb,” recalls Jakubiak (BSME ’03).

And the older gentleman in the photo who actually followed instructions by wearing black to the game? That’s Joe Tiller, the Boilermakers’ iconic football coach, whom Jakubiak and his buddies just happened to bump into in the basketball arena’s restroom. Fortunately, somebody had the good sense to snap a photo for posterity’s sake.

“That’s definitely a good memory,” Jakubiak says.

The photo’s value is purely sentimental, and yet it’s one of Jakubiak’s favorite items in the handcrafted lockers in his basement that showcase his Purdue memorabilia. And it’s a perfect example of why so many folks love to create fan caves like his.

Whether you call it a fan cave, a she shed, a man cave or any of the countless variations, the great thing about these spaces is that they give their owner an opportunity to show visitors who they are.

What their interests are.

The cool stuff they’ve collected.

Personal accomplishments.

What they like to do in their free time.

Who, and what, they care about.

The basement of Jakubiak’s home in the western Chicago suburbs is just such a space. There’s a pool table and beer-related paraphernalia. There are models of equipment from Caterpillar, where he has worked for nearly two decades. And there’s enough Chicago Cubs memorabilia to make it abundantly clear where his loyalties lie during baseball season.

Then there’s the huge, gold-and-black basement bathroom, which the DIY enthusiast remodeled a couple of years ago during a 10-day quarantine after coming down with COVID-19.

Every time I walk in that bathroom, I have good memories.

Eric Jakubiak BSME ’03

“Fortunately, I only felt bad for a day and then I had nine days of doing nothing,” Jakubiak says. “And I can’t do nothing, so I worked on the bathroom the whole time.”

He had his dad drop off construction materials and then went to work, building the lockers for his Boilermaker collection out of some old doors. Adding to the locker room aesthetic, he hung two Boilermaker jerseys in there: the No. 15 jersey made famous by Super Bowl-winning quarterback Drew Brees on the side that houses mostly football items, and a plain Purdue basketball jersey on the side that is largely dedicated to hoops.

Jakubiak hopes to someday replace the two jerseys with one autographed by Brees himself, plus another signed by Purdue basketball legend Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson, the 1994 national player of the year and No. 1 overall NBA draft pick.

“(Robinson) was a little bit before my time, but he was a guy that I watched when I was younger before I went to Purdue,” says Jakubiak, who grew up in Muncie, Indiana. “He’s one of the reasons I became a Purdue basketball fan.”

In the football locker next to the photo of Tiller, Jakubiak and his Hawaiian shirt-wearing pals is a ball that Tiller autographed with the inscription “Remember the Rose Bowl,” a reference to Purdue’s 2001 appearance in the oldest and most historic bowl game of them all.

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But in reality, Jakubiak has no difficulty remembering Brees’ and the Boilermakers’ trip to Pasadena. He was there, too, and his ticket from the game is on display inside the case.

“That’s a cool memory because I got to fly out to the Rose Bowl when Purdue went there, and we haven’t been back since. It might have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Jakubiak says. “We lost to Washington, but it was a blast being there over New Year’s. That was super fun.”

Among other notable items in the lockers is another prized possession — a basketball autographed by Hall of Fame Boilermakers basketball coach Gene Keady — and lots of additional items with sentimental value like Purdue gifts from his family, fraternity big-brother paddles, and drinkware and art from the West Lafayette bars where Jakubiak and his friends spent many memorable nights in college.

The location of Jakubiak’s Purdue fan cave may seem a bit unusual — a fan bathroom is unique to say the least — but he nonetheless found a way to use the available space to memorialize a well-rounded college experience that he treasures. Taken as a whole, the displayed items strike a balance between memorabilia that any loyal Boilermaker would love to own as well as pieces that are significant only to him.

“Every time I walk in that bathroom, I have good memories,” he says.

As it should be in any fan cave.

Ishita Sameer Bhedi is making the most of her time as a Purdue biomedical engineering student in Indianapolis  

“I knew that I could thrive in my engineering degree here,” says Ishita Sameer Bhedi, a Purdue biomedical engineering student in Indianapolis. “And it turns out that I’ve gotten pretty involved along the way.” 

Involved to the extent that her resume reads like that of a professional with decades upon decades of experience — not a 22-year-old college student. Bhedi has built her success story in the Indianapolis community — around campus and in classes — making connections and already activating her career.  

She’s earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees through a five-year accelerated degree track. As of the beginning of November, she finalized plans to add a new chapter: She accepted a full-time position with Eli Lilly and Co. 

“Every day is interesting,” she says. “I’m always wondering what tomorrow will bring.” 

I knew I could thrive in my engineering degree here.

Ishita Sameer Bhedi  Purdue biomedical engineering student in Indianapolis

Choosing Indianapolis  

Indiana’s capital city isn’t Bhedi’s hometown. Her first visit to the U.S. was when she arrived for her college move-in day in 2019. She was born in India, lived in Dubai for 10 years, then lived in Qatar for seven. While she was in high school, a university representative relayed the chance to get a Purdue degree from an urban campus. 

“I had heard of Purdue, because who hasn’t?” she says. “For someone interested in engineering, it’s recognized around the world to be a top choice. I knew I wanted to go to Purdue, and then I learned about how Indianapolis supports so many industries and organizations in the medical field. It was perfect.” 

Biomedical engineering has been her passion for years. She became interested in medicine while taking biology as a high school freshman and was excited about the chance to focus directly on biomedical engineering in college instead of resorting to other institutions’ more generalized majors. 

The Indianapolis location ties Purdue’s leading education to the exact program that she was seeking and offers a unique downtown environment that she’s loved getting to know. 

“I love it here,” she says. “For me, being in the city has been perfect. I can live here, work here, study here. I’m surrounded by all of these different perspectives and a lot of ways to connect with others.” 

I’m surrounded by all of these different perspectives and a lot of ways to connect with others.

Ishita Sameer Bhedi 
Purdue biomedical engineering student in Indianapolis 

Thriving in the Indianapolis community 

Through networking around Indianapolis, Bhedi has made new friends, been introduced to mentors and formed the foundation for her career. Today, her connections can be found everywhere: volunteering at Coburn Place, being a part of the Indianapolis 500 and working at Eli Lilly. 

“A friend of mine started the Domestic Abuse Prevention Student Organization after a group of us decided we wanted to spend time volunteering in Indy,” she says. “We contacted Coburn Place and started regularly helping with their services.” Coburn Place provides survivors of domestic violence and their children with support and safe housing.  

She has also been a part of the 500 Festival Princess Program, dedicated to celebrating Indiana’s civic-minded, academically driven young women. Through this, she met 32 other program ambassadors from around the state. 

“It was nice to meet girls from all over and hear about their college experiences,” she says. “I heard about the program from a friend, who was actually a TA in one of my classes freshman year. I had kept it in the back of my mind while I was becoming more and more familiar with Indy, and by senior year I was really excited to apply.” 

Within the last couple of years, she has cultivated other lasting connections that have led to reputable results: her role at Lilly. She’ll be a senior scientist in manufacturing and quality there once she graduates with her master’s degree in 2025.  

“I’m excited to see all of the people I’ve met there again,” she says. “During my junior year, I was an intern at Lilly doing research in the Medicines Innovation Hub and Drug Discovery and Development department. Since I like the rules and regulations side of the processes, I switched my focus to manufacturing and quality.”  

She is graduating with a few friends who are also headed to Lilly. Just as she networked around the Indianapolis community, she found Boilermakers around campus who enriched her college experience as they spent time together in a variety of student clubs. 

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Joining clubs on campus 

“How cool would it be to run the school?” 

Bhedi and a friend were hanging out in a residence hall room during their freshman year. To some, asking what it would be like to lead the university would be a purely rhetorical question. To them, it was the start of an ambitious plan.  

Bhedi says, “We went down this rabbit hole of research on student government, and we decided, ‘You know what? Let’s do it. By senior year.’”  

First, Bhedi became part of the Engineering and Technology Student Council and a student government representative. She started becoming more familiar with the cares and concerns of students and learning what she could eventually do to help. In their junior year, she and her friend assembled a council of representatives from every school within the university.  

The committee helped the duo stay informed on students’ cares and concerns and advocated for an exciting milestone the following year: Bhedi was elected student government treasurer, and her friend was elected president.  

“It all started with one casual conversation,” she says. “I loved being in student government so much as an undergraduate that I transitioned over to the graduate and professional student government. I’m the vice president now. It’s been a very fruitful experience.” 

Serving the student body comes in more than one form for Bhedi. In addition to her involvement with the Domestic Abuse Prevention Student Organization and student government, she also manages the Mathematics Assistance Center and served as executive director of legal and logistics for TEDxIUPUI. Her leadership abilities stem from her own learning experiences and her love for problem-solving.  

“We tutors love the word ‘yet,’” she says. “It’s a mindset. Students come in and say, ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ and we say, ‘Yet.’ You don’t understand this equation … yet. You are not confident about the exam … yet. You will learn.” 

Accepting the “yets” and embracing challenges has been a big part of her progression through college.  

“Coming to the U.S. for the first time to be at this university was not an easy step,” she says. “But I really think my advisors and professors helped me branch out because they made sure I was comfortable. I had a good foundation to jump into all these opportunities.” 

Excelling in classes 

While advancing in her professional and personal pursuits, Bhedi has also been an academic powerhouse, leading the way in her courses and research labs. She’s been gathering the insights she needs before jumping into the pharmaceutical world full time.  

“With biomedical engineering, you can go into prosthetics,” she says. “I’m not as into mechanics, so I pivoted toward biomaterials, which is anything that goes into someone’s system. It could include pharmaceuticals, as well as tissue engineering and implantable materials.” 

Day-to-day schedules look different, depending on which club is meeting, what exam is on the horizon or when research steps are happening. In her research, she’s studying the relationship between biomedical engineering education and health equity and how the two complement one another.   

As a senior, Bhedi was recognized as a top 10 student by IUPUI. Each year, select students are honored for their commitments to academic performance, campus leadership and community engagement.  

“It’s definitely been a roller coaster,” she says. “And I can’t wait to experience what’s next.”

Purdue Student Government President Shye Robinson cares about community, legacy and integrity — always

What motivates the president of Purdue Student Government? 

“Giving back is my priority,” says Shye Robinson, a senior double-majoring in political science and brain and behavioral sciences with a minor in Spanish. “I am who I am today because of the people I’ve met, the places I’ve gone and the experiences I’ve had at Purdue.” 

As the title of her self-produced podcast declares, “Shye’s Not Shy.” She’s bold, inquisitive and actively creating a more inclusive and supportive campus.   

Striving to serve  

“I’ve always known that I wanted to give back and help people,” Robinson says. “Before college, I had figured out that I wanted to be a dutiful servant somehow.”  

During her senior year of high school, she was accepted into Purdue as a biochemistry major with the goal of becoming a pediatrician who could help families in need. However, the summer of 2020 altered her aims even before her first semester started. Seeing the impact of various movements — particularly Black Lives Matter — pointed her toward a career in the American political realm.  

Robinson switched her major to political science with a minor in Spanish. The second language could open doors to more careers that influence laws and support societal well-being. She places a premium on large-scale security, ensuring everyone can access the aid they need to thrive. Interwoven in this passion is her decision to add a second major in brain and behavioral sciences after taking a compelling psychology course.  

I’ve always known that I wanted to give back and help people.

Shye Robinson  Purdue Student Government president  

Current events caused Robinson to pivot to political science; they also inspired her to create the nonprofit organization Roundtable Politics to promote respectful, productive discussions amid polarized atmospheres. “Talking to people with different beliefs can be a conversation, not a debate — I think that’s a big shift that’s needed, and we’re working on that with Roundtable Politics,” she says. 

Pursuing a double major and a minor, as well as leading club meetings, broadened Robinson’s outlook (and contributed to what she dreams of doing after college), but influential experiences haven’t been limited to campus. While at Purdue, she’s taken trips that have further inspired her to impact the world.  

Expanding her own perspective  

Traveling with the university enriched Robinson’s understanding of global conditions. She credits trips to Argentina and Washington, D.C., as instrumental tools in learning about the functions of government. 

Robinson spent two months of the summer after her sophomore year in Argentina, honing her Spanish-speaking skills and making connections with people. “It was my first time out of the country and such a beneficial experience for me,” she says. “I want to do a lot of traveling in my life — especially through South America — and I’m glad that my minor could lead me to a place like that.”  

Policies’ effects on the United States were further evident during Boilers Go to D.C., a two-week program through the Brian Lamb School of Communication that puts Purdue students in the same rooms as decision-makers and communicators in the nation’s capital.   

“Boilers Go to D.C. was unforgettable,” she says. “We were going, going, going all day.” She appreciated the schedule: mornings spent touring the city and listening to guest speakers; lunches with other attendees; afternoons focused on learning media relations.  

The students engaged with the guests, which Robinson felt prepared for thanks to her discussions in Roundtable Politics and classes. In addition, all attendees were assigned a Purdue alum as a guide, and Robinson made an instant connection with hers, Pablo Balcazar. 

Balcazar works for a nonprofit organization geared toward immigration policies and was immensely helpful in giving Robinson information about D.C., as well as about getting involved in civil rights systems and growing her personal network. The two keep in touch and see each other during visits.  

“The people are always the most important part,” she says. “Being with other students from the Brian Lamb School of Communication made everything even more memorable and fun because I was alongside my friends.” 

Robinson makes a friend anywhere — something that’s been a constant since her freshman year. 

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Advocating for others  

Starting from day one, Robinson created connections across campus and wanted to help her peers.  

“When I got to Purdue, I loved getting to know people,” she says. “I would run into acquaintances on my walks, and I was always super excited to chat with them and get to know their stories.” 

After learning more about Purdue Student Government from friends in the College of Liberal Arts and the Political Discourse Club, Robinson joined as a senator during her junior year. When she started, she created the Black Boilermaker Experience, an ad hoc committee. She was motivated by a student she met from a different university while studying abroad in Argentina. At that student’s school, they gathered testimonials from underrepresented students who shared how their identity translated into their college experiences.  

“Studying psychology, I know that community — and specifically belonging — is super important,” she says. “It leads to having a good college experience. Getting involved in a community is essential, and it can be discouraging if you don’t see people who you identify with. So I decided to talk with Black students here, see from their perspectives and understand where they’re coming from.”  

The Black Boilermaker Experience produces documentary-style films that show diverse communities and spotlight students’ viewpoints. Working with the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, the committee has a goal to reach prospective students and show that they can find a place where they belong at Purdue.  

I want to make changes that are tangible.

Shye Robinson 
Purdue Student Government president 

“Seeing how Black students have connected with communities at Purdue makes everything even more worthwhile,” she says. “I’m a huge advocate of interacting with different cultures and getting to know people’s backgrounds. It’s how you grow.”  

For her senior year, Robinson planned on continuing as a PSG senator, since she liked the work she was doing. But a leader in PSG encouraged her to instead run for student body president, citing her strong network, social skills and leadership abilities as a solid foundation.  

After a successful election with running mate and now Vice President Andrew Askounis, Robinson is able to enhance opportunities for others at Purdue like never before. It’s a collaborative effort, from meeting with Purdue President Mung Chiang and university administrators to getting to know how other colleges operate during student government conferences with Big Ten schools.  

“I want to make changes that are tangible,” she says. “Can I walk away knowing students in the future will have access to even more?” 

Stepping toward what’s next  

Robinson’s persistent pace isn’t slowing down for her last semester in West Lafayette. Between health science courses and an absorbing class on Latin American history, she’s also researching and creating a Court of Claims database for her senior capstone project.  

Outside of class, she keeps up with world events, researching and writing scripts for “Shye’s Not Shy.” She started the podcast after a final project prompted her to find a creative outlet. In each episode, she shares what she’s taken in from the news, discusses crucial topics with friends and strives to educate audiences. It’s also about having an enjoyable time and a good laugh, too. 

“I want people to take away something after listening,” she says. “If you learn something new, that’s a win in my book.”  

Robinson’s base of selfless service is building up to what happens once she graduates. As a freshman, she planned to become a civil rights lawyer. Now she knows there are countless roles she could pursue that would still promote her lifelong calling: being present and serving the world.  

“Being a part of Boilers Go to D.C. was really impactful for me,” she says. “Getting to meet real-world professionals in D.C. and learn about their career trajectory and where they are now showed me that anything is possible.” 

A marriage that blossomed over half a century ago on Purdue’s campus is still going strong

In December 2023, Gisela and Luis Nino celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary at their home in Cincinnati with their three daughters, grandchildren, and other friends and family. 

Their daughters surprised them with a heartfelt gift — a book filled with 60 years’ worth of photos and memories, beginning with their time as students at Purdue. When reminiscing about what 60 years together has been like, the couple finds it hard to put into words. 

“Sixty years,” Gisela says. “That’s unbelievable. I don’t even believe that!” 

The two met in 1962 at a gathering for international students during Gisela’s first year at Purdue. Luis, originally from Colombia, had already been on campus for a few years and was close to finishing his master’s degree in civil engineering. Gisela was studying fashion merchandising and textiles and had just arrived from Brazil. 

“He asked me if he could go out with me, and I said, ‘I don’t think so,’” Gisela says. “But he was insistent, and so eventually we did go out, and then it all started.”  

Of the dating scene at Purdue at the time, Luis recalls, “There were a lot of guys at Purdue. The girls were a minority. They had good-looking girls who were always taken, so we had to make a line to meet them. 

“The reason I was in the States was to get my master’s, get some experience and go back to Colombia,” he says. “And if I had the chance — the opportunity — to meet a nice-looking girl with blue eyes, why not?” 

A Purdue wedding 

The Ninos’ romance, like so many others, began simply and beautifully. The young couple bonded over their passion for music and dancing. At the time, undergraduate students received football season tickets every fall. But Gisela would trade hers for symphony tickets, instead opting to spend time with Luis in the seats of Elliott Hall of Music, listening to music or dancing at a gathering for international students.  

“We didn’t have any money anyhow, so that was a good way of doing it,” Gisela says. 

Purdue continued to play a part in their relationship as their young love blossomed into a marriage. Their community stepped up to make their small 1963 wedding happen right on Purdue’s campus, even though funds were tight.  

“Our wedding at Purdue was fantastic,” Gisela says. 

The wedding ceremony took place at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center and continued with a reception across the street at Purdue Memorial Union. The only family member who was able to join was Luis’s brother Julio, who was living in the U.S. at the time. So the wedding party was largely made up of friends and faculty from Purdue.  

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Gladys Vail, the dean of the School of Home Economics at the time, offered to make their wedding cake and the punch for the reception. Other faculty members helped throw the bridal shower. Many more faculty and fellow students assisted with wedding planning. The pews were filled with Boilermakers. 

As for the wedding dress, Gisela made that herself. 

“I couldn’t afford anything else!” she says. “There was a store over in Lafayette that had a basket with remnants. There was a big remnant of lace. It was super, super reduced, because it was soiled. So I took it, threw it in the washing machine, washed it, and then I made my dress. I didn’t have enough fabric to make a long dress, so it was a short dress.”  

She even sewed it in her residence hall on campus. At the time, Vawter Hall (part of Windsor Residence Halls) had a few sewing machines available for students to use. When she found a free moment in between study sessions, she would head downstairs to work on her dress. 

“I don’t think I would do it again if I had the means,” she says. “But it was a lot of fun creating my own dress. As a matter of fact, I look at the pictures from that time and all the dresses I had made. There is not one dress that I have that I didn’t make myself, but this was mostly for economic reasons.” 

Secrets to happiness 

Up until recently, Gisela continued to alter wedding dresses for a bridal store near where she and Luis live in Cincinnati. When the store closed a year ago, she took it as a sign that it was time for her to retire and focus on traveling with her husband and family. 

“We love to travel. We go every place we can,” she says. Their last trip was to Brazil and Colombia with their daughters to visit family. Gisela is planning on going to Brazil again this year to spend time with her sisters. 

For the Ninos, family is the most important thing. “Family is everything, honest to goodness,” Gisela says. “They are the anchor of your life.” 

Family is everything, honest to goodness. They are the anchor of your life.

Gisela Nino 
BS fashion merchandising and textiles ’66 

Luis believes that the secret to a long and happy family life is simple. “Keep your family together,” he says. “It’s important. It’s a good idea to go back home to your parents, your cousins, and be together, whether it’s dinner or whatever.” 

And Gisela’s advice for couples hoping to keep a strong marriage is equally simple, yet profound.  

“One of the things I truly believe in is that when you go to bed, you’re not mad at each other,” she says. “Make peace before you go to bed. I don’t think you ought to carry your troubles to bed.” 

To this day, 60 years after their simple wedding on Purdue’s campus, the Ninos are cultivating a strong marriage through simple acts. 

“We walk together. We go to the symphony together. We go out at least once a week, have a glass of beer and some food, just the two of us,” Gisela says. “That’s important. We do that every week.” 

Purdue Pilots Inc. generates enthusiasm for flying by providing low-cost access to flight rentals, lessons 

When it comes to flying credentials, it doesn’t get much better than the student organization Purdue Pilots Inc. (PPI). 

PPI came to life in 1956, when the Gold and Black Flite Club (affiliated with Amelia Earhart) and the Flying Boilermakers (a club founded by Neil Armstrong) merged. Purdue’s 1958 Debris yearbook described the organization as “the largest collegiate flyer club of its kind in the country.”  

What’s even more impressive than its history-rich pedigree is that PPI is entirely student run. “It’s me and my vice president, maintenance officer, treasurer, public relations officer and secretary, and that’s it,” says PPI President Aaron Parihar. “That’s our team; we manage everything.”  

Parihar notes that, while other university flying clubs may have a student governing board, it’s rare for a club to be entirely operated by students. “We’ve talked to other clubs,” he says, “and I don’t know of any besides PPI that are fully student run.” 

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PPI is unique in its cost structure as well. When a new member joins, they gain the exclusive right to rent one of PPI’s two Piper Warrior II aircraft. Members also vote on how the planes are maintained and priced. 

Since its inception, the club’s mission has been to cultivate enthusiasm for flying at Purdue by providing low-cost access to flight rentals. Again and again and again, PPI has met this goal. 

“Thousands of aviators have passed through our club since it started,” Parihar says. “There is a really rich history of people being able to come here and learn to fly affordably. We allow access to anyone with a Purdue affiliation, not just students. Boilermakers can come learn to fly for some of the best rates you can find in the area.” 

During Purdue Aviation Day, we let kids come sit inside the planes, and they love it. I hope we’ve inspired a few kids to get their pilot’s license one day.

Aaron Parihar
President of Purdue Pilots Inc. 

Purdue Aviation maintains, hangars and dispatches PPI aircraft. And the club also has a flight instruction agreement with Purdue Aviation. Training ranges from an introductory “Is flying really for me?” lesson all the way to earning a private pilot’s license. 

Parihar says, “There’s a lot that you can do through PPI, though, even if you’re not pursuing a license.”  

Members can rent the aircraft for leisure travel. Last spring break, for example, a member flew one of the planes to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Another member flew a plane back home to celebrate his grandmother’s 94th birthday. 

“It’s a different level of freedom and connection,” Parihar says. “The ability to travel, to spend time with your family or visit new places.” 

A private pilot himself, Parihar is slowly working his way toward his instrument rating. He will graduate in spring 2025. He points to PPI as a foundational experience for him at Purdue.  

“Outside of academics, PPI is my biggest time commitment, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he says. “It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.” 

Purdue Pilots even helped Parihar with the next steps in his future career as an engineer. “I have an internship this summer at Garmin, where I’ll be working on some of the same instruments that we have in our planes,” he says. “I was connected to the internship through other members of the club. They told me about Garmin and encouraged me to apply.” 

Brittany Gallarneau applies lessons learned at Purdue in her career as a first officer for Envoy Air 

When Amelia Earhart came to Purdue in 1935 as a consultant on careers for women, she imagined a future in which young women persistently pursued work that they loved — like Brittany Gallarneau (BS professional flight ’21).   

“I decided I wanted to fly when I was about 17,” she says. “My dad (Hugh Gallarneau, American Airlines 737 captain) was my first flight instructor; he taught me while I earned my private pilot’s license.”  

Aviation was something Gallarneau wanted to pursue professionally, and Purdue was the right place for her to take her next steps and earn a professional flight degree.   

“Purdue is one of the best aviation schools in the country,” she says. “But I also wanted to feel like I was going to college to have a broader experience and go somewhere with great school spirit.”  

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She accomplished that goal in a significant way, earning a spot on the Purdue Golduster Dance Team. For four years, Gallarneau practiced many hours a day, five days a week, with the team.  

“For me, it was just amazing because I was able to continue my love for dancing while meeting many different people,” she says. “And it taught me a lot about teamwork. So many people coming from different dance backgrounds, different states, different walks of life, and we all got to dance together in support of one big cause — Purdue.” 

Gallarneau developed close friendships in Goldusters, as well as with her roommates in college, none of whom were aviation majors. She says, “I was able to really branch out and meet people. And I love that about Purdue.” 

Genuine curiosity about other people and the ability to quickly form connections with them has served Gallarneau well, both in her aviation education and career.  

“I made wonderful friends in professional flight,” she says. “We all went to different airlines, but we’re all still close friends today. It’s cool that we get to fly around the country and meet up with each other in different places.” 

Gallarneau is a first officer for Envoy Air, the largest regional carrier for American Airlines. People tend to assume that means she flies a fixed route over and over. The opposite is true. 

“We fly all over the country,” she says. “We also fly up to Canada, down to Mexico and to the Caribbean. Last night I was in North Carolina, but I could also be heading to Dallas, Baton Rouge, Miami, Phoenix, Chicago, New York. It’s nice to have the diversity of different destinations, new places.”  

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Different routes mean regularly working with entirely different crews — something Gallarneau loves. “Everybody has their own story,” she says. “We’re all bringing something different to the table. I get to fly with former helicopter pilots, fighter jet pilots, Purdue alums, and that is fun.” 

One of Gallarneau’s favorite things about her job is making special moments possible for her passengers.  

“No matter where I am,” she says, “I know that I have a little bit of a bigger purpose in connecting passengers. People might be traveling for a birthday, a wedding, a funeral. Airports have this huge emotional veil over them: the sad hugs of goodbyes, the happy groups of people cheering and holding ‘welcome home’ signs. And I love being part of all of that.” 

Gallarneau also likes making connections with future aviators. Like Earhart before her, Gallarneau is inspiring the next generation of women pilots. She participates in Girls in Aviation Day at Purdue, encouraging young girls to consider the profession. And she is a part-time recruiter for Envoy Air, recently participating in the 34th Annual Women in Aviation International Conference. 

“My job gives me such great opportunities,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll get this beautiful sunset or sunrise, or I’ll get to see the stars or fly over the mountains. And I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m 30,000 feet in the air, and I am so blessed to be able to do this.’” 

Everybody has their own story. We’re all bringing something different to the table. I get to fly with former helicopter pilots, fighter jet pilots, Purdue alums, and that is fun.

Brittany Gallarneau BS professional flight ’21

My degree from Purdue Global shows my kids to never give up

Nina earned her degree as a Navy veteran and mother of three while battling breast cancer. She is sharing her inspiring and beautiful story of how she pushed through for the comeback she was determined to finish.  

I joined the Navy after high school. While in the Navy, I had my oldest son at 21, and I didn’t have the best support system at the time. His father and I didn’t have that connection to stay together and raise him. We were both really young, and we ended up separating. I felt like the best decision for me was to leave the Navy even though I didn’t want to. I was living in Washington at my last duty station, and my parents were going through a divorce, so I decided to move home to help them through it. While I was home, I was going back to school off and on while I was working. It became too overwhelming for me as a single parent with a job to do school full time, so I had to take a step back.  

Then I met my husband, and we have been together for 12 years. We moved to South Carolina together, started a business, and I decided to try going back to school. At that time, I got into a nursing program, and right when I did, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I had some health complications with her, and we decided that we needed to be closer to family. We ended up selling our business and coming home to Indiana. So again, my plans to go back to school hit another setback. I felt like I kept putting everything before myself and what I wanted to do. When we moved to Mishawaka, Indiana, and my husband was stable enough after his career change, I told him I really want to finish school. This is for me. I need to get my bachelor’s degree. 

I ended up finding Purdue Global, which was awesome because, as a working mom, I needed an online program. And because I was unhappy with the job I was in, I decided to leave and pursue school full time. I was fortunate enough to do so because of my husband. He always tells me that he is so proud that I am graduating, but I tell him we should be proud of each other because I wouldn’t be able to complete it if it weren’t for him. He then got a job offer in Pennsylvania, so we moved from Indiana and away from a lot of my family. That’s when I began struggling through another obstacle. 

I was suffering from a form of depression, and it was a rough semester in school since I was in Pennsylvania away from my family. It was kind of a dark time for me, so I ended up having to drop my classes and take one term off to get myself together. Finally, I said to myself, “I’m too close. I have to finish.” After taking that term off, I started right back. I had some more hiccups, and, in March of 2022, I found out I was pregnant with my second son. However, I only had five or six classes left, so I kept pushing. 

This was my third pregnancy, and it ended up being very complicated. I was suffering prior to the pregnancy with an umbilical hernia, and 10 days after a cesarean section, I had surgery to have it repaired. And through all that, I was still in class trying to make sure I finished my degree.  

In January I went in for my six-week post-operation checkup, and during my physical exam my doctor noticed something on my right breast. I went to have a mammogram and found out in February that I had breast cancer.  

They found multiple tumors on my right side, so I had to go through six sessions of chemo — all while having a newborn. During this whole time, I knew that I didn’t have many classes left, so I was still trying to push through. One of the military representatives at Purdue Global was helping me through the process. I had to reenroll, and she made sure that I was able to get back in, so I’m thankful for her. The last two terms, I was open about my diagnosis with my professors. The professors were very understanding. There were certain weeks of chemo that I couldn’t even get out of bed, and they were willing to work with me. It wasn’t like everything was on me; I truly had the support of the school. They really wanted to make sure you know that you are graduating.  

I still need surgery and reconstructive surgery, and, mentally, I want to jump right into a career, but I still have to deal with these health issues. Even though I’m not working right now, I’ve been applying, and I am nervous about that with my surgery coming up, but the Career Center at Purdue Global has been helping me a lot. They’ve been sending me jobs and helping me go over my resume as I plan to go into human resources. I’m just a people person. I love helping people. That’s why I want to do something with human resources. I feel like human resources sets the culture for the business. They can create a positive atmosphere in the company. Whatever career I can get into to make a difference somewhere, that’s what I really want to do. In the future, I plan on going for my master’s after taking some time off. My cancer has taken a toll on me, but I am very grateful because I know there are people who have it 10 times worse.  

This journey has been a lot to deal with, but I had my goal set. I had to finish my bachelor’s degree to show my children that no matter what you go through, if something doesn’t go your way, or you have health issues or you have kids, don’t stop fighting. Don’t stop pushing for your goals. That’s just who I am as a person — I’m a fighter, and I’m not going to give up. 

Finally, I said to myself, ‘I’m too close. I have to finish.’

Nina Padilla BS business administration ’23 / Purdue Global

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