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James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo
Department of Chemistry

Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU) Nu Chapter's successful academic year; recruiting new members this summer

2025-06-11

plu design header

Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU) Nu Chapter is a chemistry honor society of graduate students in the Tarpo Department of Chemistry.

The group is involved in many activities across campus from chemistry scholarship, outreach, and professional development to philanthropy and social events.

In late summer, the group annually accepts applications for membership – an explanation of requirements and eligibility will be available on the PLU Boilerlink on July 7.

“Every year we induct roughly 30-40 chemistry graduates into our program, dependent on first-year class size. However, inductees are not limited to being first-years. We have 5-10 second-, third-, and fourth-year inductees who are accepted,” said PLU President Aaron Mena, a graduate student in Professor Wilker's lab.

PLU Board

The chapter is led by PLU officers:

Aaron Mena – President
Myles Edwards – Vice President
Megan Hill – Treasurer
Seohee Ma – Secretary
Alexander Koers – Social Chair
Seth Horn – Outreach Coordinator
Isabelle Schaekel – Creative Director

Some of the group’s achievements and events during the past year include:

  • Hosted a field trip for 30+ grad students to the Eli Lilly Indianapolis campus
  • Hosted and funded two very successful distinguished speaker seminars
    • Dr. Nicholas Hud from Georgia Tech
    • Dr. Catherine Murphy from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Hosted a Q&A session with local industrial chemistry personnel for chem grads looking for jobs
  • High goggle sales for the Fall and Spring semesters
  • De-trashing the Wabash River
  • Winning a PLU chapter grant from the PLU National
  • Hosting an appreciation brunch for the CHAS staff
  • Hosting a baking competition amongst the chemistry graduate students
  • Awarding monetary awards to our graduate students for conference traveling and professional scholarship

PLU has a century-long history at Purdue where the chapter was established in 1917. Nationally, PLU was founded as an honorary chemical society in March 1899, at the University of Illinois.

In keeping with its objectives, PLU, in 1965, established the National Fresenius Award to recognize outstanding chemists whose early achievements have an exceptionally high quality and who show great promise for distinguished careers in chemistry.

Recently, Jeffrey E. Dick, Richard B. Wetherill Associate Professor of Chemistry, was selected as the 2025 recipient.