Trevion Williams keeps defying the odds with his signature style Trevion Williams isn’t your average athlete. The six-foot-nine, 280-pound sophomore forward stands out for more than his size. While most college students are strolling campus in sweatpants and hoodies, Williams sports a style all his own. He loves to dress up, wearing tailored pants, pastel […]
Super Bowl champ counts blessings as his foundation builds schools in Haiti Anyone’s life can change in an instant. A heart attack, a hurricane, a knee to the chin. At just 33 years old, Cliff Avril (HHS’11) speaks with hard-earned authority on each of those examples. His father, Jean Samuel Avril, died from a heart […]
Amber Johnson Purdue’s first black woman to earn computer science PhD When Amber Johnson (PhD S’19) walked across the stage at Elliott Hall of Music, she knew she was making history as the first black woman to earn a doctorate in computer science at Purdue University. “It’s cool that my graduation coincides with the 150th […]
Purdue Alumni connects graduates, advances students The life and legacy of Roger Blalock (HHS’69) was a major inspiration for Toyinda Smith (HHS’98). It wasn’t just his outstanding athletic career, averaging more than 12 points a game on the men’s basketball team. And it wasn’t just his ongoing leadership within Purdue Athletics, coaching men’s basketball from […]
When he was a student at Purdue, football standout Chukky Okobi (LA’00) started using neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). For Okobi, the psychotherapy approach — which aims to take control of thoughts and behaviors — helped him gain a competitive advantage on and off the field. “I used NLP to maintain control of my mental and emotional […]
When Tamara Markey (IE’94, MS’16) walked down the halls of her Indiana high school, McKenzie Center for Innovation and Technology, one day in October, she thought she was heading to a meeting for one of the many programs she leads. But then she turned the corner and saw her husband, Maurice (IE’98), and her children, […]
Veterinarian leaves career in academia to serve veterans In ways big and small, Purdue alumni shape the world every day. Across the country and around the globe, thousands of Purdue graduates make a positive impact on their communities. Timed to coincide with Purdue’s sesquicentennial, the Purdue Alumni Association is working to recognize the untold stories […]
Black Cultural Center celebrates 50 years of embracing diversity Folks you’d better stop and think.Everybody knows we’re on the brink.What will happen, now that the King of love is dead? Three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Nina Simone and her band debuted “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)” in New […]
Anthony “Tony” Harris (ME’75, HDR E’13) has always loved math. But he didn’t take calculus or any advanced classes in related fields — they weren’t even available at his south-side-Chicago high school in the 1960s. That never stopped Harris from dreaming big. He thought he’d become an architect, but his drafting-class teacher advised him engineering […]
Modeling Success What does it mean to be the only woman at your level in an organization? The only African American on your team? The essential in the question isn’t which word follows “only.” You could replace woman with Muslim, or African American with Latina. The heart of the question is what it means to […]
