Hustle and grit refine setter Hayley Bush’s standout performance
Moving from a hometown with a population roughly one-third the size of Purdue’s student enrollment required some getting used to for Hayley Bush, a junior in the College of Agriculture. The sense of family and familiarity of the landscape attracted her to West Lafayette.
“It’s definitely different going to restaurants and having to wait 15 minutes for Chipotle,” says Bush, a native of Union, Kentucky. “The people are the same; there’s just a lot more than I am used to. It reminds me of home.
Purdue is close enough to my family that they can come see me play. And the education is really hard to beat.”
At five-foot-nine-inches, Bush is among the shorter setters in the Big Ten Conference. But what she lacks in height, she makes up in work ethic, grit, and determination.
“Hustling more and making more plays in the back court puts me at an advantage,” she says. “The Big Ten is the most competitive conference. Every time you step on the court it’s a battle. The setter runs the show as far as touching the ball on every play. The ability to run plays sets you apart.”
An agricultural finance major, Bush plans to have a career in the food and beverage industry following graduation. For now, she’s focused on putting in time in the weight room, stoking her competitive spirit, and developing her leadership on the court.
“I’m looking forward to playing better than any season we’ve ever had to create history,” Bush says. “I want us to achieve goals that were set since I started at Purdue, goals that were set before I arrived.”
It’s a confidence Bush grew into over the past few years. “It comes with experience,” she says. “It comes with reminding yourself that you are good enough and you can handle anything that’s thrown at you.”
This story appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of Purdue Alumnus magazine.
Greg Baker leads AffirmedRx, a pharmacy benefit manager and public benefit corporation that’s shaking up the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain
Greg Baker is angry. He thinks you should be angry, too.
He’s on a crusade to reform traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the companies that manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers. In May 2023, Baker testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability that a handful of large PBMs control up to 80% of the market, to the detriment of the American public.
The first Black woman to earn a DVM degree at Purdue University, Dr. Doris Hughes-Moore, attributes her success to the sacrifices made by her ancestors
Dr. Doris Hughes-Moore (DVM ’73) recognizes the importance of preserving and honoring history. She’s president of the board for the Wilson Bruce Evans Home Historical Society, an organization with a mission to preserve the home and promote its historical significance as part of Black American history and culture in Oberlin, Ohio. She’s also the great-great granddaughter of Wilson Bruce Evans and his wife, Sarah Jane Evans.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jeremy Busby’ 95 Developed Meticulous Mentality in K-States Nuclear Engineering Program.
On a bookshelf in Jeremy Busby’s office, tucked among scientific journals, policy manuals and bric-a-brac accumulated during his nearly 30 years as a nuclear engineer, sits his undergraduate notebook from Applied Reactors Theory I & II. Busby ’95 is now the associate lab director for the isotope science and engineering directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He took those courses with Professor Ken Shultis and Professor Richard Faw in 1992 and 1993, but the principles instilled have stayed with him throughout his distinguished career.
A Q&A with Ashley Watson about spooky stories, ghastly tales and commonplace books
Gripped by a fascination with ghost stories from a young age, Ashley Watson, a communications specialist at Purdue University who earned her PhD in rhetoric, blogs about folklore, hauntings and commonplace books at notebookofghosts.com.
Appreciation of education inspires alumnus to fund endowed professorship in veterinary dentistry
A clerical error nearly cost Dr. Raj Singh his spot in veterinary school.
Nearly four decades later, after building a successful veterinary practice in California, he reflects on how the education he received at Purdue University prepared him to pursue the career of his dreams, take giant leaps as a business owner, and develop a special interest in dentistry. A passion for this field of veterinary medicine motivated Dr. Singh and his wife, Melissa, to commit $1.5 million to establish an endowed professorship in dentistry at the College of Veterinary Medicine last fall.
Geochemist Marissa Tremblay ’12 analyzes Antarctic rocks to unravel Earth’s climate chronology and predict the planet’s future environment
A geologic field excursion to Death Valley during spring break her first year at Barnard set Marissa Tremblay ’12 on course to becoming a scientist. She entered college intending to pursue a law degree, but stepping foot on that vast, desolate desert landscape marked with sand dunes ignited a curiosity to uncover the stories in stones.
Longtime diplomat and educator Patrick Mendis retains strong ties to Minnesota.
With humility and gratitude, Patrick Mendis (M.A. ’86, Ph.D. ’89) has embraced adventure, defied a prophecy, and charted his own course through life.
Mendis says a horoscope reading when he was an infant said he wouldn’t live past his first birthday. His mother, a Sinhalese Buddhist traditionalist, heeded the scholarly monk’s warning to raise her son outside the home, sending him to live with his Catholic paternal grandparents in rural Sri Lanka when he was 7 months old. His grandparents told him he was adopted, and that they found him under a banyan tree.
Silver Star recipient Antonio Gonzalez ’94 placed his trust in faith, football
Children growing up in the predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s lived on the razor’s edge between childhood innocence and gang violence.
Plagued by high violent crime rates, struggling public schools and poverty, those who yearned to escape the concrete jungle of Boyle Heights saw two options — go to college or enlist in the military. In time, Army Sgt. Maj. Antonio Gonzalez ’94 would do both, earning a football scholarship to Kansas State University and receiving a Silver Star Medal recognizing his gallantry in action.
MATC launches bilingual welding program
Karen Feliciano says people are often surprised to learn she is a welder because “I don’t look like a typical welder to them. It’s very much a male-dominated field.”
Yet the MATC welding instructor sees herself in her students every day.
“My students inspire me,” Feliciano said. “I see the challenges I faced when I moved to Wisconsin from Puerto Rico. I see how much I struggled when I was first starting out in this career. But I see myself in their successes, too.”
Physics equations drive optimization of complex engineered systems
Computational models allow researchers to analyze and design complex systems, but development can be a slow process. Leifur Leifsson, associate professor and principal investigator of the Computational Design Lab, uses physics equations to optimize engineered systems for aircraft and space systems as well as microwave systems, nondestructive testing systems and food-water-energy systems.