Purdue community invited to Feb. 15 Honors College alumni panel on leveraging interdisciplinarity

The Purdue community is invited to a Feb. 15 panel featuring six alumni from the John Martinson Honors College (JMHC) who will discuss how interdisciplinarity has benefited them in their educational and professional journeys.

The event, called “Leveraging Interdisciplinarity in Post-Graduate Educational and Professional Life,” takes place from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15, in Hiler Theater in Purdue’s Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC). The panelists, who hold degrees in a variety of disciplines, will discuss what interdisciplinarity looks like in practice and share how interdisciplinary experiences have changed the way they think and work with others.

Megha Anwer, associate dean for Belonging, Equity and Inclusion in the JMHC, said the event aims to highlight the importance of several pillars within the college curriculum, including interdisciplinary academics, leadership development, and community and global engagement. It can also help staff and instructors better integrate interdisciplinarity in their own work and courses.

“Some of the key components of world readiness are interdisciplinary collaborative thinking, working in teams and being inclusive, and you can’t have one without the others,” Anwer shared. “There’s an intrinsic relationship between all of these parts, and we’ve invited our former students to share how their interdisciplinary and diverse experiences have contributed to their development, growth and success.”

Learn More About the Panelists

Paige Rudin Kinzie

Paige Rudin Kinzie is a veterinary health systems engineer designing and implementing sustainable and equitable policy solutions to complex problems at the intersection of animal, human and environmental health security. She completed a 2018 Boren Scholarship in Romania, combining language and cultural immersion with experience in veterinary clinics. Starting in October 2019, Kinzie worked as a Research Assistant and Research Operations Administrator at the RAND Corporation managing Quality Assurance processes for research sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. She is currently a joint D.V.M. (Purdue College of Veterinary Medicine) and M.P.H. (University of Minnesota) student. She holds a B.S.E. degree in Multidisciplinary Engineering (Honors, 2019) and a minor in Global Engineering Studies from Purdue University.

Anjali Byappanahalli

Anjali Byappanahalli graduated from Purdue in May of 2021 with Honors through the College of Science. She majored in Neurobiology and Physiology with a minor in Chemistry. During her time at the Honors College, Byappanahalli became passionate about ethical leadership, serving as a mentor and in leadership roles within the Honors Mentor Program. After graduating, she went on to work as a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Institutes of Health. There, she studied biomarkers of age-related health disparities. Currently, she is a first-year graduate student in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at The Ohio State University studying cancer epigenetics and computational biology.

Giovanni Malloy

Giovanni Malloy is a data science researcher at RAND Corporation. In his research, he develops new methods and novel applications of artificial intelligence, decision analysis, economic analysis and mathematical modeling to evaluate public policy interventions. At RAND, he has worked with various stakeholders across the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining RAND, his research centered on data and decision science for health policy. Applications of his work included cost-effectiveness analysis methods development and COVID-19 mitigation in jails and prisons. He holds a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.

Maesa Ogas

Maesa Ogas graduated from Purdue University in the Spring of 2023 with majors in Food Science and German and minors in LGBTQ+ Studies and Fermentation Science. In the process of participating in the Maymester Honors College project entitled Visual Memories of Tippecanoe Communities, they discovered their love for archives and oral history, leading them to pursue a Master of Library Science. They now live in Indianapolis, studying part-time for their master’s while working full-time for Girls Inc. of Greater Indianapolis, where they use their STEM and liberal arts background to teach girls and gender-expansive youth to be strong, smart, and bold.

Antonia Roach

Antonia M. Roach is from Easton, Pennsylvania but has strong Midwestern roots. She enjoys hiking, cooking/baking, painting (refinishing old furniture), and reading. She attended Purdue University and graduated with a B.S. in Psychological Sciences and continued on to receive an M.S. in Postsecondary Higher Education from Syracuse University. She is currently at Washington University in St. Louis pursuing a doctorate degree in sociology where her main focus is to highlight the experiences of marginalized groups within social movements where they've been regarded as invisible; in particular, the Black community and the vegan movement. Interested in issues of access, Roach’s research takes a closer look at the perception of social movements and how they implicitly invite in or exclude certain groups of people.

Hyesoo Chae

Hyesoo Chae is currently the System-wide Perioperative Pharmacy Manager at University of California – San Francisco Health. In this role, she leads interdisciplinary initiatives across multiple facilities to optimize patient care and medication use processes. Before embarking on her current role, she completed her residency with Providence and completed her Master of Business Administration with Oregon State University. Chae graduated from Purdue University College of Pharmacy and the Honors College in 2020 with her Doctor of Pharmacy. During her time at Purdue, she was actively involved in the Purdue Orchestra, Office of Housing and Dining, Office of Undergraduate Research, and Mortar Board.