In this episode of “This Is Purdue,” we’re talking to Sangtae Kim, the Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Head of Chemical Engineering and Distinguished Professor. 

Sangtae dives into his family background — including what it was like growing up in a family of educators, his career at Eli Lilly and what brought him back to academia to lead Purdue University’s Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. 

Listen as Sangtae discusses the significance of the growing number of women majoring in engineering and Purdue’s culture of solution-oriented students.  

“Be part of the solution, not the problem, right?” Sangtae says. “It’s advice that I don’t have to give because that’s the nature of Purdue students and graduates.”   

Plus, he shares what it means to him to be guiding and mentoring those walking in the same shoes he once did and his admiration for Purdue’s “excellence at scale.”