October 1999
Todd Gehr (BS ’76, MS ’77) returns to Purdue to receive the OChE Award. Todd was the first graduate student of the laboratory. After his MD, he became a practicing nephrologist. He is now Chief of Nephrology at the Virginia Commonwealth Medical School. Todd's thesis was first on biomaterials in our lab. He synthesized and characterized novel non-thromobgenic biomaterials based on poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone)

December 1998
Front: Nicholas Peppas, Madeline Torres-Lugo, Petr Bures, Bill Leobandung, Sujata Harshvardan, Jing Zhang-Rosing, Rachel Peck, Jenny Harting Ward, Ebru Oral
Back: Hideki Ichikawa, Yanbin Huang, Aaron Foss, David Henthorn, Javier Pacheco-Gomez, Christie Dorski-Bures

1998
Back: Christie Dorski (Westvaco), Jenny Ward (ExxonMobil), Yanbin Huang (Alza), Aaron Foss (Medtronic)
Front: Petr Bures (Bayer), Jing Zhang (Givaudan), Kelley Keys (Lilly), Madeline Torres-Lugo (Univ Puerto Rico) , Bill Leobandung (Intel), Kairali Podual (Bioarrays)

August 1998
On August 8, 1998 about 100 hundred former students and friends gathered in Indianapolis for a surprise party in honor of Prof Peppas’ 50th birthday (the actual date being two weeks later). Here from the day events of August 9, 1998, Nicholas Peppas, Michelle Knight (BS '83), Tony Lowman (PhD '97), John Howell (BS '83), John Jr, Matthew and Barbara Barr-Howell (MS '84), and Prof Rena Bizios, now at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Rena and Nicholas have a 35-year friendship that started when they were labmates in Dr Lees' Arteriosclerosis Center at MIT

June 1998
Front row: Bill Leobandung, Kelley Keys, Madeline Torres-Lugo, Kairali Podual, Jing Zhang and Jennifer Harting
Back row: Aaron Foss, Atzmon Shahar, Christie Dorski, Nicholas Peppas, Flemming Madsen, Petr Bures and Yanbin Huang

December 1997
Monica Little, Kairali Podual-Banerjee, Lisa Schwarte-Runge, Bob Parker, Jing Zhang-Rosing, Rob and Elle Scott, Nicholas Peppas, Laura and Tony Lowman, Balaji Narasimhan, Kelley Keys

November 1997
A gathering of former students of the Peppas laboratory at the Purdue hospitality suite of the 1997 AIChE meeting in Los Angeles, CA on November 18, 1997. From left: Dr Flemming Madsen (now of Colorplast, Humlebaek, Denmark), Chris Bowman (now Associate Dean of Engineering, University of Colorado), Matt Helmkamp (now with Rohm and Haas Company, Deer Park, TX), Prof Lisa Brannon-Peppas, Dr Becky Ficek-Fredrickson (now a practicing ophthalmologist, Northwest Eye Associates, Houston, TX), Prof Kristi Anseth (now distinguished professor at the University of Colorado), Prof Alec Scranton (now Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa), Dr Richard Korsmeyer (now Global Head of Licensing with Pfizer), Nicholas Peppas, Tony Lowman (now Associate Dean of Engineering at Drexel University), Kairali Podual-Banerjee (now with BioArray Solutions in Piscataway, NJ), Prof Surya Mallapragada (now professor at the Iowa State University), Adam Turk (now at the Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, NM), Jennifer Sinclair Curtis (Head of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida) and Prof Balaji Narasimhan (Associate Dean of Engineering at Iowa State University).

August 1997
Nicholas and Lisa Peppas, Tony Lowman, Juergen Siepmann, Flemming Madsen and friend, Kelley Keys, Christie Dorski, Kairali Podual, Rob and Elle Scott, Jing Zhang

Summer 1997
Front: Juergen Siepmann, Kelley Keys, Kairali Podual, Jing Zhang
Back: Nicholas Peppas, Tony Lowman, Flemming Madsen, Christie Dorski, Rob Scott

October 1995
First Row: Monica Little, Christie Dorski, Lisa Schwarte, Surya Mallapragada,
Kairali Podual, Balaji Narasimhan, Rob Scott
Second Row: Sheila Wright, Tony Lowman, Chris Brazel, Prof. Paolo Colombo, Bob Parker

August 1995
Bob Parker, Chris Brazel, Nicholas Peppas, Kristi Anseth (as a postdoc in the lab), Sheila Wright, Christie Dorski, Lisa Schwarte and Surya Mallapragada

April 1995
This picture includes the legendary honors class of 1995. Ten honors students of that year (Brad Chadwell, Jennifer Swiger, Amy Lutrell, Sarah Vakkalanka, Michelle McFerrin, Michelle Bland, Neena Mongia, Jennifer Bauerle, Chrsitie Dorski, Kelley Britton) did their BS honors theses in the Peppas laboratory under the expert tutelage of Chris Brazel who showed signs of briliant organizational skills. Of these ten honors students, eight went on to receive PhD, MD, MBA, JD and other professional degrees. All ten published papers, a total of 16 publications and 24 proceedings/abstracts. The graduate students in this picture did not do less, with four of them becoming nationally known academic leaders (Surya Mallapragada, Bob Parker, Balaji Narasimhan, Chris Brazel). Absent from this picture is Tony Lowman, another academic leader now who was on an internship at the Hoshi University of Japan that summer.

Front: Surya Mallapragada, Kairali Podual-Banerjee, Sheila Wright, Bob Parker. Second row: Lisa Schwarte-Runge, Brad Chadwell, Jennifer Swiger-Sauriol, Balaji Narasimhan Back row: Amy Lutrell-Borcherding, Cynthia Bugert, Sarah Vakkalanka, Michelle McFerrin-Anthony, Michelle Bland, Neena Mongia-Tierney, Jennifer BauerleKmet, Chris Brazel, Christie Dorski-Bures and Kelley Britton-Keys

December 1994
Kelley Britton-Keys, Christie Dorski-Bures, Cynthia Bugert, Laurie Hite, Chris Brazel

August 1994
Chris Brazel, Alla Pavlova-Hickey, Surya Mallapragada, Ruggero Bettini and Dev Kurdikar

July 1994
Alla Pavlova, Dev and Champa Kurdikar, Surya Mallapragada, Christie Dorski. Alla Pavlova came to our laboratory from Prof. Nikolai Plate's laboratory in the fall of 1992. She stayed with us for more than a year and did some powerful research on solute transport through membranes. Upon completion of her work, she remained in the USA. Known now as Alla Hickey, she works for Westvaco. Dev Kurdikar was an able PhD student who worked on photo-polymerizations. Among others, he won the senior author in a pioneering paper on photopolymerizations that was published in Russian in the journal Vysokomol. Soyed. Ser. A. on the occasion of Prof. Plate's 60th birthday. After graduation, Dev worked for Monsanto, then got an MBA at the University of Chicago and is now a senior business analyst at Baxter in Chicago.

December 1993
Sitting from left: Michelle McFerrin-Anthony (now a senior business analyst at Dell Computers), Rebecca Hays-Jessep (now in Horsell Graphic, UK), Surya Mallapragada (now Professor at Iowa State University), Brad Berkowicz (now at Merck), Ann Grosvenor (received PhD from Univ Kentucky), Lakshminarayana Achar (Bayer India) Standing: Natalie Wisniewski (received PhD from Duke Univ, now independent consultant in California), Ruggero Bettini (now Professor at the Univ of Parma, Italy), Nicholas Peppas, John and Cristi Bell-Huff, Linda Gudeman (now on mission at Pyatigorsk, Russia), Amy Jines, Balaji Narasimhan (now Associate Dean of Engineering at Iowa State University), Chris Brazel (now Professor at the University of Alabama), Dev and Champa Kurdikar (now at Baxter).

December 1993
Nicholas Peppas, Matt Helmkamp (now at Rohm and Haas), Becky Ficek-Fredrickson (now ophthalmologist at Northwest Eye Associates, Houston), Amy Ouellette (now at Brown University), Brad Berkowicz (now at Merck), and Mina Mazdai (now at Air Products). Sitting: Jennifer Smith (now at BP).

December 1992
Balaji Narasimhan (now Assoc Dean of Engineering at Iowa State University), Kristine Dermoty, Deepak Hariharan (Adhesives Research), Amy Ouellette (now at Brown University)

March 1992
First Row: Christi Chisamore, Kristi Anseth, L. Achar, Ankush Argade, Ernie Davis
Second Row: Jennifer Sahlin, Esmaiel Jabbari, Dukjoon Kim, Mary am Ende
Third Row: Jianchu Wu, Cristi Bell, Dev Kurdikar, Deepak Hariharan, Sam
Bhargava, Atul Khare, Eric Dietz

January 1992
Mary Rugger- am Ende (PhD ’93) working with a refractometer. Mary was the first graduate student to analyze structural characteristics in solute transport in pH-sensitive materials. Her FTIR-based analysis has received more than 270 citations. Mary is an active researcher in Pfizer in Groton, CT.

December 1991
Front row (from left): Mary Rugger-am Ende (now at Pfizer), Atul Khare (now at Baxter), Jennifer Sahlin (now at 3M), Esmaiel Jabbari (now a Professor at the University of South Carolina), Deb Kurdikar (now at Baxter), Saumitra Bhargava; second row: Jianchu Wu, Nicholas Peppas; third row: Kristi Anseth (now a Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado), Deepak Hariharan (now at Adhesives Research), Lakshminarayana Achar (now at Bayer India Ltd), Cristi Bell-Huff, Ankush Argade (now at Rigel Pharmaceuticals)

December 1991
Front row (from left): Mary Rugger-am Ende (now at Pfizer), Atul Khare (now at Baxter), Jennifer Sahlin (now at 3M), Esmaiel Jabbari (now a Professor at the University of South Carolina), Deb Kurdikar (now at Baxter); second row: Jianchu Wu, Nicholas Peppas; third row: Deepak Hariharan (now at Adhesives Research), Lakshminarayana Achar (now at Bayer India Ltd), Cristi Bell-Huff

October 1991
Rohit Khanna (BS ’79) returns to campus to accept the OChE award from Prof GV “Rex” Reklaitis for outstanding contributions. After leaving the lab, and after a PhD at CalTech, Rohit started Dynamic Solutions, a computer company that was eventually purchased by Millipore. Rohit is now VP there.

July 1990
From left: Chris Bowman (sitting, now Assoc Dean of Engineering at the University of Colorado), Alec Scranton (now Assoc Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa), Jennifer Sahlin (now at 3M), Jorge Olivares (now at Eli Lilly), Margaret Janusz-Olivares (now at Eli Lilly)

Summer 1990
Esmaiel Jabbari (PhD ’93), Atul Khare (PhD ’92), Chris Bowman (BS ’88, PhD ’91), Cristi Bell-Huff (MS '92, PhD '94), Jennifer Sahlin (MS ’89, PhD ’92), Jianchu Wu (PhD ’92), Deepak Hariharan (PhD ’93), Nicholas Peppas and Mary Rugger-am Ende (PhD ’93). In the early nineties, the research group grew to 25 researchers with typically 11-13 PhD students working in the labs. Most of these students are leaders in the academic and industrial world now.

April 1990
Cristi Bell-Huff (MS '92, PhD '94) working with Valia-Chen cells. Cristi was a pioneer in solute transport in complexation membranes for biomedical applications. Her work on the mechanisms of protein transport has become the standard of analysis in the field and her review article in Progress in Polymer Science is a highly cited review.

March 1990
Gregg Howsmon (BS ’86, PhD ’90) was the last student to work on the subject of modeling of food packaging, a research that had started in 1977. Subsequently, Gregg did his PhD with Prof Nick Delgass and is now with ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge, LA.