2010 Outstanding Alumni

2010-08-13

Dr. Joe D. Allison

Joe Allison is a Research Fellow at ConocoPhillips Company. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue in 1983 under the direction of Prof. Richard Walton studying the fundamental chemistry of rhenium polyhydrides. He joined Conoco directly from Purdue and has been in the Research & Development Department for the past 27 years. His research efforts have resulted in solutions and products spanning from Production to Refining, with several DuPont projects thrown in for good measure. This has resulted in more than 70 patents and active patents pending. His research interests include alternate fuels and energy, C1 chemistry and catalysis. He currently is advising multiple groups within R&D and serves as a mentor for many young scientists and engineers. Joe is very active in the ACS at the National and Local levels resulting in several honors and awards, including the 2008 Oklahoma Chemist Award.

Dr. Elizabeth S. Bowman

Board-certified psychiatrist Elizabeth Bowman is former Professor of Psychiatry and currently Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. She holds an M.D. from Indiana University, and a Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.) from Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. She is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD) and of Indiana Psychiatric Society, and Founding Editor Emerita of the peer-reviewed Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the ISSD in 2005, the Oskar Pfister Award in Religion and Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association in 2004, and several teaching awards at Indiana University. She is known nationally and internationally for work, and curricula in religious/spiritual aspects of psychiatry, dissociative disorders, and psychogenic (conversion) seizures. In 2009 her handmade quilt won a blue ribbon at the Indiana State Fair. She resides in Indianapolis with her husband, Dr. Philip Coons.

Dr. Charles L. Brooks III

Dr. Charles L. Brooks is the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biophysics at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Purdue in 1982 under the direction of Professor Steven A. Adelman. He completed postgraduate work at Harvard University and was the recipient of an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship between 1983 and 1985. In 1985, he joined the Chemistry Faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and was promoted to Professor in 1992. He received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 1992 and during this period spent a sabbatical year working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm Sweden and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla California. As a result, he moved his research group to The Scripps Research Institute in 1994, where he worked in the area of theoretical and computational biophysics. His honors and awards are numerous. A notable example is the Computerworld Smithsonian Award which includes a permanent exhibit of his work in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. In 2009 he was recognized as a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr. James R. Gord

Dr. James R. Gord, Principal Research Chemist with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate and Director of the Combustion and Laser Diagnostics Research Complex, is an internationally recognized leader in the development and application of optical measurement techniques for advanced propulsion and fuel systems. His work has produced five patents, two book chapters, more than 110 peer-reviewed journal articles, and more than 600 conference papers and presentations (with more than 125 invited). Dr. Gord earned a B.S. in chemistry at Miami University (1986) as a National Merit and Ohio Board of Regents Scholar and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry at Purdue University (1990) as a National Science Foundation and American Chemical Society Pre-Doctoral Fellow. After postdoctoral studies at JILA, he joined the Air Force (1991), where he is an AFRL Fellow, an OSA Fellow, an AIAA Associate Fellow, an adjunct professor at several universities (including Purdue), and a member of many other technical societies and honoraries.

Dr. Robert E. Wild

Robert Wild is the Assistant Head of Chemistry at Purdue University. He has served the department in many ways over his nearly 30 years of departmental administration. He has served as director of graduate admissions, and graduate student advisor to hundreds of students. In addition to these roles, Bob oversees academic support services for the department including laboratory management and course scheduling. He has served as part of the advancement team and has lead several fundraising projects for the department. He has provided advice and input to eight department heads. At the university level he has served as the campus-wide chair for United Way, he was the first chairman of the university’s Administrative/Professional Advisory Committee. He has served on the Business Services Advisory Council and the College of Science Alumni Board, as well as other campus advisory groups. Recently Bob has taken a leadership role in the design and construction of the planned Drug Discovery Building to be completed by 2013. Bob completed his Ph.D. with Dick Walton in 1982.