Features
Kat Braz
The Purdue Herbaria

An insider’s look at a university collection so valuable, the professor who built it once stole it back.

The earliest herbarium—a collection of plant samples preserved for scientific study—dates to 16th-century Italy, when the Bologna physician and botanist Luca Ghini (1490–1556) sought to make plant material available to his students in winter when the plants were dead or dormant.

The specimens were flattened between two pieces of paper to remove moisture. Once dried, they were mounted on paper sheets with notations on the plant’s name, where the plant was gathered, and any distinctive features. The pages were bound into volumes to enable transport from one location to another, thus making plant material from faraway places available indefinitely.

The Purdue Herbaria
Features
Kat Braz
A Window into Westwood Manor

The Stewarts at Westwood

Robert Bruce Stewart (HDR M’68), known as R.B., joined the Purdue University staff as controller in 1925. At that time, Purdue enrolled 3,000 students, the physical plant was worth $3 million, and the endowment totaled $340,000.

Stewart, who went on to become the university’s first vice president and treasurer, is credited by many with influencing the character and growth of Purdue University. He spent 36 years building the university both fiscally and physically.

A Window into Westwood Manor
Profiles
Kat Braz
A Story in Stones

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.

A Story in Stones
Features
Kat Braz
Call of the Wild

50 Years of Wolf Park

Founded by Purdue ethologist Erich Klinghammer in 1972, Wolf Park began as an experiment to study wolf behavior. The pioneering research conducted there over the past 50 years contributed to a better understanding of the apex predator and facilitated its reintroduction into the wild.

Call of the Wild
Profiles
Kat Braz
Come From Away

Twenty Years After 9/11 Longhorn Reflects on the Unexpected Detour—and the Subsequent Broadway Show—that Altered His Life’s Trajectory

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Kevin Tuerff and his then-partner, also named Kevin, were on an Air France flight bound for New York City. The couple had just wrapped up a European vacation and they were eager to get home. A sudden drop in elevation over the Atlantic Ocean was the first sign that something was amiss. Then came an announcement from the cockpit.

Come From Away

Finis

Finis

Last apparel design and technology majors showcase collections in the final Purdue Fashion Show

The day has finally arrived. It’s five o’clock in the morning when the hair and makeup teams roll into the Cordova Recreational Sports Center and begin setting up the makeshift studio space where they will be camped for most of the day.

Designers arrive soon after, already exhausted from the previous day spent transforming the feature gym next door into a fashion runway and the previous evening running a dress rehearsal and finalizing their choreography. Not to mention the previous three months spent planning and organizing the final details of the show and the previous year spent designing and constructing their garments.

The past four years have all led to this day, when the last students majoring in apparel design and technology will showcase their capstone collections.

It’s the final Purdue Fashion Show.

Radical Underground

Radical Underground

Honors course explores how zines fostered communities of resistance

In the aftermath of World War II, social critics in the United States grew increasingly pessimistic about the roles of mass media, consumerism, and bureaucracy in society, viewing them as instruments of authoritarian control. These counterculture voices frame the curriculum of Underground Networks, a new course offered through the Honors College that examines radical forms of social life that emerge within yet in opposition to oppressive institutions.

Lost Art of Sketching

Lost Art of Sketching

Teaching students how to pick up a pencil and communicate their ideas

One of the greatest inventors of all time created a lot of ugly design drawings. Thomas Edison’s sketches may not be pretty, but they communicated his ideas, and that’s essential to collaboration and innovation.

Todd Kelley, associate professor of technology leadership and innovation, is a former secondary school teacher who researches how young students learn design and how design improves STEM education. He uses Edison’s drawings to illustrate that design sketches do not need to be artistic or attractive to serve their purpose — clearly communicating an idea.

Red Planet Research

Red Planet Research

All-Purdue crew spent two weeks on mission to Mars habitat simulation

Seven Boilermakers formed the first all-Purdue crew to complete a two-week mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah, from December 30 to January 14.

“The environment around the station is extremely accurate in its appearance,” says Max Fagin (MS AAE’15), an aerospace engineer at Made in Space and commander of the Boilers2Mars team. “The chemistry of the soil doesn’t mimic the chemistry of Mars, but the lack of vegetation and signs of human life create a landscape that is very Mars-like.”

Office Landscape

Office Landscape

Freehafer Hall, once lauded as example of early open office plan, demolished

Construction crews quietly demolished Freehafer Hall of Administrative Services over the course of several weeks this winter as part of the State Street redevelopment project slated to plot a new roadway through the site. Although it was razed with little fanfare, when it opened its doors in 1970, the administrative services building (as it was then known) was heralded on the cover of Administrative Management magazine as the “Offices of the Year.”

Extreme Leap

Extreme Leap

Professional cliff diver sees the world from 27 meters

Each time Steven LoBue (HHS’09) jumps off a 27-meter diving platform, it’s as if he’s leapt from an eight-story building. He hurtles through the air, accelerating from zero to 55 mph in less than three seconds before entering the water — feet first, always.

Don't Ever Give Up

Don't Ever Give Up

Tyler Trent was diagnosed with bone cancer twice by age 18. He’s had nine major surgeries in the past three years. Now the Purdue freshman and die-hard sports fanatic is determined to live life on his own terms, come what may.

Tyler Trent knows the statistics.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 450 children and adolescents are diagnosed with osteosarcoma in the United States every year. About 2 percent of all childhood cancers are osteosarcoma. If treated before it spreads, the five-year survival rate is between 60 and 80 percent. Recurrent osteosarcoma occurs in 30 to 50 percent of patients with initialized local disease. If the disease has spread to the lungs, the long-term survival rate is about 40 percent. Once it spreads to other organs, chance of survival drops to 15 to 30 percent.

Breaking Point

Breaking Point

Enthusiastic wrestling coach on the student who forced a change of heart

Bradley Harper (HHS’05) lives his life to the extreme. “It’s the only way to be,” says the 37-year-old wrestling coach at Penn High School in South Bend, Indiana. In his 11 seasons as head coach of the Kingsmen grapplers, Harper has grown his roster to more than 80 wrestlers, brought home the first team state championship in school history (2015), and won the first-ever all-girls’ state championship (2017).

Harper describes the boys’ championship as “one of the better moments of my career.” Though he’s equally proud of the girls’ championship, it’s a victory that may never have happened were it not for one tenacious eighth-grade girl.