PROFESSORS OF PURDUE: Janelle Wharry

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Assistant Professor of Nuclear and Materials Engineering

Words of wisdom


Take advantage of every opportunity you are presented with, even if you feel you aren’t ready – you will rise to the occasion. You are your own best champion, so if you don’t have the confidence to conquer an opportunity, you can’t expect anyone else to have confidence in you.

More about Professor Wharry . . .


What are you passionate about?

  • Traveling, Bordeaux wines, and antique French cookware. It’s important for my work-life balance and stress management to maintain a life and interests that are totally separated from work.

What advice do you have for female engineers? It can be in regards to being a female, engineering, school, finding a job, life, etc.

  • Take advantage of every opportunity you are presented with, even if you feel you aren’t ready – you will rise to the occasion. You are your own best champion, so if you don’t have the confidence to conquer an opportunity, you can’t expect anyone else to have confidence in you.
  • Also, this is really important: You will encounter MANY women in positions of leadership who will pay lip service to the idea of supporting and helping other womens’ careers, but will not act on their promises (and often, they may even work to put down other women, by whom they feel threatened, in order to maintain their position as the “only” woman in their field/team/company). Avoid these people, and don’t become one of them. If you get hurt by a situation like this, remember that you are your own best champion, and don’t let other people control your destiny.

What inspired you to begin your research and start in engineering in the first place?

  • Like most of you, I was good at math and science in high school, and that led me to pursue engineering in college. As far as inspiration for my research, though, that’s a bit more interesting story. I worked in the nuclear power industry for a couple of years after graduating with my B.S. and M.S. It was there that I realized that all the issues that the nuclear power industry faced revolved around materials. The nuclear fission aspect was well understood – it was the materials that we didn’t understand, which often led to costly repairs or shutdowns. This was when I decided that I would return to grad school and pursue research that helped improve materials performance in nuclear reactors.

How do you use engineering principles for your job?

  • I teach engineering principles at the undergraduate level. Specifically, I teach Introduction to Nuclear Materials (NUCL 320) and an accompanying laboratory (NUCL 325). Both of these courses introduce students to the engineering basis for selecting materials for nuclear systems. These same engineering principles are extended to my research, as we try to understand how to improve materials’ performance in nuclear systems.

What do you do in your free time? Both involving and not involving engineering

  • Being a professor is a time-consuming and intense job that doesn’t “stay at the office”. So in my free time, I try to get as far away from science and engineering as possible, to try to maintain balance and peace of mind. For me, this means running, yoga, cooking, baking, and spending time with my dogs.

What's your favorite aspect of your job?

  • Seeing students evolve and become independent, self-guided researchers.

What's your favorite memory involving engineering?

  • My senior design project made me feel like I had become a “real” engineer, and although it was a lot of work, the team camaraderie was a highlight of my college experience.

What daily challenges do you face with your job? Like what type of problems do you have to solve?

  • Time management and prioritization. There are always so many deadlines, meetings, and emergent issues – all of them have varying levels of importance. Being able to manage my time to most efficiently complete these tasks, and prioritize which tasks are necessary (versus not critical), is the key to being successful as a professor. This stuff is far more critical than any technical, scientific, or engineering research problem that I work on.

What was the best advice you received when you were a college student?

  • If you ever get offered a faculty job, take it.
Look out for more Professors of Purdue features to come!

- Compiled by Women in Engineering Recruitment Project Committee Members
Annaliza Canda, Bailey McConnell, Cassandra McCormack, Dani Marty, Elizabeth Chattin, Hannah McGinness

Stay Connected with Purdue WIEP!
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Purdue Women in Engineering

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