BRYAN BOUDOURIS is a professor of chemical engineering with a courtesy appointment in chemistry. He has played an instrumental role in the field of polymeric and energetic materials development by creating a research ecosystem that combines breakthroughs in foundational molecular principles with a focus on translational impact.

With an interdisciplinary research approach, Boudouris combines the physical sciences, health sciences, and engineering with social, behavioral, and economic sciences to guide and evaluate technological innovations. His active research program focuses on the science and engineering of polymers and soft materials.

Boudouris is the associate vice president for strategic interdisciplinary research in Purdue’s Office of Research. He advances the university’s goals and priorities for research and partnerships by developing research strategy; investing in priority initiatives for the university; and ensuring Purdue teams deliver research outcomes that significantly move the state, nation, and globe forward.

Boudouris is the only Purdue faculty member in history to win the American Physical Society’s John H. Dillon Medal, an annual award given to one young polymer scientist or engineer. He previously held a postdoctoral position at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and served as a rotating program director at the National Science Foundation.

RAJAMANI GOUNDER is a distinguished researcher of chemical engineering who has made significant contributions to the chemistry and engineering of catalytic systems. His work focuses on the fundamental science of catalysis and its practical applications to develop sustainable routes to synthesize chemicals and fuels and to mitigate their deleterious impacts on the environment. Gounder was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Gounder leads an experimental research group that studies the fundamentals and applications of heterogeneous catalysis and the atomically precise synthesis of inorganic solids and molecular sieves. He is the director of the Purdue Catalysis Center, which fosters collaborative research and provides instruction in the theory and best practices of catalytic science.

Gounder has served as president and director of the Catalysis Club of Chicago. He is also an associate editor for the Science Advances and Reaction Chemistry & Engineering journals and serves on the editorial advisory boards of the ACS Catalysis and Catalysis Reviews journals. Gounder has organized technical programs for many professional societies and meetings, including the North American Catalysis Society meeting, the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers meeting, the Catalysis Club of Chicago meetings, and the 17th International Congress on Catalysis meeting.

VEERA GNANESWAR GUDE is a researcher in the field of environmental engineering. His areas of expertise include desalination and water purification, sustainable process chemistry, and development of renewable fuels. Gude’s most recent research efforts focus on resource recovery from waste streams and the development of resilient and sustainable renewable energy systems for remote and isolated communities, especially during extreme events and disasters.

Gude holds two U.S. patents related to resource-efficient water and energy technologies for sustainable development. His projects have been funded by agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and authored and edited eight books.

Gude serves as an editor of three prominent energy and environment research journals—Journal of Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, and Water Environment Research. For the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists, he serves as a member of the board of trustees and the executive committee. In 2017, Gude was named Engineer of the Year by the American Society of Civil Engineers Mississippi Section. He also received the American Society for Engineering Education Outstanding New Faculty Research and Early Career Awards.

VIJAY GUPTA is a professor of electrical and computer engineering. He studies distributed decision-making in large-scale networked systems, specifically those with applications to societal infrastructure systems. Gupta’s work has contributed to the design of these systems in multiple ways.

Gupta is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and has been a coauthor on several award-winning papers. He currently serves as the director of graduate programs at the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

He previously held positions at the University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland, California Institute of Technology, United Technologies Research Center, and Indian Institute of Technology.

MYEONG HWAN KIM is a renowned professor in the Department of Economics and Finance at Purdue University Fort Wayne. As a researcher, he is currently focusing on international economics and is developing research that integrates finance and open economy macroeconomics.

Kim helped start cooperative education ventures with Seoul Women’s University, Namseoul University in South Korea, and the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Romania. Kim has published 38 peer-reviewed articles—seven of which are single-authored—in academic journals, and he is a coauthor of the textbook Economics.

Kim is a member of the American Economic Association, the Korea-America Economic Association, and many other committees and organizations. He is the editor of the Journal of Global Business and Trade. Kim previously held positions at the University of North Georgia, California State University, Claremont Graduate University, the University of Redlands, and Bethesda University.

GERHARD KLIMECK is the Reilly Director of the Center for Predictive Materials and Devices and assistant vice president of IT Faculty Support and deputy CIO for Information Technology at Purdue. He is also director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, where he helped create nanoHUB.org, which serves over two million global users and has been used as an educational resource at over 185 institutions.

Klimeck focuses his research on the nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics modeling of electron transport through nanoelectronic devices by utilizing massively parallel computing and user behavior analytics and impact metrics in an open cyber-infrastructure. He creates simulation tools that can be applied to realistic nanoelectronic device problems. Klimeck’s research groups built a nanoelectronic modeling software called NEMO, which established state-of-the-art atomistic quantum transport modeling. Since 2015, NEMO has been used at Intel to design at least two generations of transistors.

Klimeck is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He previously served as a contributor and reviewer for critical national initiatives, including the National Nanotechnology Initiative and Argonne National Laboratory.

Klimeck has been awarded six patents and has written one book, 10 book chapters, and more than 500 peer-reviewed journal articles and proceedings. He previously held positions at Texas Instruments, Raytheon, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the California Institute of Technology.