PURDUE UNIVERSITY FEATURE WRITING

Fighter pilot, a Purdue alumna, was prepared to sacrifice her life on 9/11: (Purdue.edu, Published Sept. 9, 2021) On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Heather Penney and her flight lead decided to sacrifice their lives by crashing their F-16 fighter planes into the hijacked United Flight 93 to prevent it from reaching Washington, D.C. The pilots never reached the airliner — passengers fought back against the hijackers, forcing the plane down in the Pennsylvania countryside — but Penney frequently relives the events of 9/11 as a tribute to the heroes of that tragic day. She shared her remembrances in this profile, which acknowledged the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The piece was a finalist in the Best Interview or Profile category in the 2022 Content Marketing Awards.

Sirisha Bandla took unconventional small steps before her giant leap into commercial spaceflight: (Purdue.edu, Published Dec. 3, 2021) Sirisha Bandla thought poor eyesight would prevent her from accomplishing her dream of becoming an astronaut. She found an alternate route to space, joining Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 suborbital flight as a mission specialist. In doing so, she became the 26th member of Purdue’s Cradle of Astronauts.

After harrowing escape from Afghanistan, Purdue instructor brings her family to West Lafayette: (Purdue.edu, Published Nov. 12, 2021) Purdue instructor Mariam was home visiting her family in Kabul when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban surged back into power. After several unsuccessful attempts to leave the country, she was finally able to make it inside the airport and onto a rescue flight — and she brought her parents and two siblings along as refugees. It took 50 days for Mariam and her family to make it to West Lafayette, where co-workers and community supporters helped them start over.

Purdue baseball team hopes Intel partnership will help Boilermakers become ‘the fastest show on dirt’: (Purdue.edu, Published Feb. 15, 2022) Purdue became the nation’s first college baseball program to partner with Intel, utilizing its 3DAT (3D Athlete Tracking) video technology to help players visualize technique adjustments that could help them become faster, more efficient runners. The partnership was an immediate success, with the 2022 Boilermakers setting a new school record for stolen bases in one season (116).

Purdue’s unique connection to the Indy 500’s beloved milk tradition: (Purdue.edu, Published May 12, 2023) The Indianapolis 500 is known for its many unique traditions, and one of the most famous is the winning team’s celebratory milk celebration in Victory Circle after the race. Each year, Indiana dairy farmers present the winning driver, owners and chief mechanic with their milk bottles — and quite often that dairy farmer is a Purdue graduate. This story introduced the Boilermaker farmers who presented the milk in five of the previous six Indy 500s leading up to the 2023 race.

‘A Tradition of Opportunity’ series: (Purdue.edu, Published in 2022-23 academic year) This story package explained Purdue’s origin as a land-grant university and how the land-grant mission includes providing educational opportunity to those who once might have been overlooked by the higher ed system. The original four-part series covered how new initiatives like Purdue Global and Purdue Polytechnic High Schools connect to Purdue’s land-grant history; what it means to be a land-grant university like Purdue; how Purdue is unique among its land-grant peers; and how Purdue’s institutional flexibility will help it adjust to future student and societal needs. After publishing the initial series, I wrote additional stories on Purdue’s Women in Engineering Program, its Disability Resources Center, and two influential Boilermaker administrators that connected these examples of educational opportunity with the land-grant mission.

Courageous Parker sisters were ‘Boilermakers in every sense’: (Purdue.edu, Published June 9, 2021) This story recounts how sisters Winifred and Frieda Parker fought to integrate student housing at Purdue in 1946. In recognition of their courage and persistence that forever changed life at Purdue, the University named two residence halls after the sisters in fall 2021.

Chance encounter reveals Purdue engineers’ remarkable connection: (Purdue.edu, Published June 2, 2022) When they met on the day of an awards banquet, Purdue student Logan Noster and Cook Biotech president Umesh Patel were astounded to learn of their shared connection. Noster was one of the first infant patients to be treated with a biomedical graft that Patel helped develop as a Purdue graduate student.

Purdue college of liberal arts, THiNK MAGAZINE

Drones, lasers clear paths to archaeological innovation: (THiNK Magazine, Published Spring 2020) Purdue Classics professor Nick Rauh led a multidisciplinary team to assist on an archaeological project at an island off the coast of Turkey. Their use of cutting-edge drone and exposure-dating technology should help answer some of the lingering questions concerning the island and the historical period in which it was inhabited.

The Purdue OWL turns 25: (THiNK Magazine, Published Fall 2019) Way back in 1994, Purdue Writing Lab director Mickey Harris simply wanted to be able to distribute writing handouts via email. That’s the origin story for what became Purdue’s Online Writing Lab, better known as the OWL. In the 25 years since Harris’ students first digitized those handouts, the OWL has become one of the world’s best-known online writing resources, drawing millions of annual clicks from across the globe. This four-part package recounts the history of the OWL and looks ahead to its future. It also includes a column by OWL coordinator Joe Forte, as well as a series of OWL stories told by previous site contributors.

New Purdue grant project integrates humanities concepts into global engineers’ training: (THiNK Magazine, Published Spring 2020) Collaborators from Purdue Engineering and the university’s School of Languages and Cultures received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that allowed them to spend a year designing a program to integrate more humanities learning into global engineers’ training for international work and study.

Professor emeritus drives Catholic-Buddhist green housing project: (THiNK Magazine, Published Fall 2019) Motivated by Pope Francis, Purdue Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Don Mitchell helped assemble Buddhist-Catholic partnerships to address the housing crises in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Theatre engineers’ dragon capstone comes to life in ‘She Kills Monsters’: (THiNK Magazine, Published Spring 2019) Three multidisciplinary engineering students created functioning dragon heads and claws for Purdue Theatre’s spring production of “She Kills Monsters” as the capstone project that concluded their college experience.

Honoring her ancestors: (THiNK Magazine, Published Spring 2020) When NASA was preparing to name the farthest object ever discovered by spacecraft, it turned to Phoebe Farris. The professor emerita from Purdue helped vet and gain tribal approval for the name Arrokoth, or “sky” in the Algonquian languages spoken by the Pamunkey and other tribes along the Atlantic coast.