Heidi Arola is Director of The Office of Global Partnerships at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Heidi’s role at Purdue is to increase the impact, scale, and sustainability of the university’s global partnerships. She is also specifically charged with overseeing Purdue’s comprehensive engagement with India, a country of strategic importance for the university.
Heidi joined Purdue in August 2015 after a 13-year career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Her final tour, from 2013 - 2015, was as the global Branch Chief of the Department of State’s EducationUSA network, overseeing 400 offices in 170 countries. Her other postings included Montreal, Canada; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Rio de Janeiro and Recife, Brazil. Heidi has a B.A. in English with a minor in French from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and an M.Sc. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
