Hello MSE colleagues.

I'm writing to relay that Tuesday, March 31, is the inaugural "Purdue Day of Materials."

Our broader community—students, faculty, researchers, staff, alumni, and other Purdue MSE supporters—will be flooding social media with "A Day in the Life" of a Materials Engineer.

I hope that on 3/31 you too will take 5 minutes to submit at least one pic, short video, memory, etc. I know it will mean a lot to our students and alumni to see us participating.

The goal is that we share about a day in the [your] life as part of the Materials Engineering community. Easy instructions follow for any of the forums we're supporting (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or simplest of all: just upload to the survey link and Sarah and Maddi will get the word out for us!).

Please encourage your students to participate as well (research groups, and your classes). Note that MSE students will get a separate invitation from us too--but without the strategy part below (fyi).

This initiative is strategic for MSE in many ways. By saturating social media about our lives and memories as Materials Engineers, we can better demonstrate our vibrant community:

to prospective undergrads and their parents;
to our incoming PhD and Masters student classes (4/15 decision deadline!);
to our alumni. They're eager to see us and our students in action, be reminded of their times at Purdue, and catch updates from their own cohorts.

More generally:

this will also help our alumni to find each other, and our students and alumni to connect;
there's a surprising lack of such content about our discipline, which continues to limit us w/r recruiting;
It'll help generate a library of content—and contacts—for us to mine for future recruiting and alumni relations;
We can easily expand the concept to other MSE programs across the country, helping Purdue to demonstrate our leadership across the broader Materials community.

So, please take a few minutes on Tuesday (or upload to the survey before then) to help "PDoM" be a great success.

-Bryan

PS. Kudos to Maddi, Julie, and Sarah for helping get the Purdue Day of Materials off the ground.

Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2026 9:00 AM
Subject: Join us for Purdue Day of Materials on March 31

Hello MSE Faculty,

Purdue Day of Materials is the first annual celebration of all things Materials Engineering, and we would be grateful to have our industry partners take part.

On March 31, 2026, we invite you to join the celebration by sharing a post on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram about your connection to Purdue MSE. You might highlight a partnership, internship program, student engagement opportunity, research collaboration, recruiting relationship, or why supporting materials engineering matters to your organization.

To participate, post on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram and please do two things in particular (full instructions attached if you need):

Tag Purdue MSE
Use #PurdueDayofMaterials

Your post will help demonstrate the many ways Purdue Materials connects with industry and prepares students to make an impact. If you prefer not to post on your own, you may email mse@purdue.edu with a photo and short message, and we’ll share it on the MSE pages on your behalf. You can also fill out our short survey, and we’ll take care of the rest. Questions? Please contact Sarah Anderson at andersons@purdue.edu.

Maddi Walsh

Program Administration Specialist

School of Materials Engineering

Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering
Office: 765-496-0460