Heidi Arola

Heidi Arola is Assistant Vice President and Senior International Officer at Purdue University; Her Office of Global Partnerships portfolio is: Brazil and International Academic Agreements. She is an international education professional with more than 20 years of experience building strategic bilateral and multilateral partnerships at the highest levels of academia, government, and the private and nonprofit sectors. Arola is the current chair of the Big Ten Academic Alliance Senior International Officer group (2025-2027). From 2002 to 2015, Arola served as a U.S. foreign service officer in Montreal, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife, culminating her State Department career as Chief of the State Department's EducationUSA network. In that capacity, she managed multi-million-dollar budgets and grants and oversaw 400 educational advising centers that promote U.S. higher education in 170 countries. Arola earned her MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown, where she was also Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. She has a BA from Tulane University in New Orleans. Arola began her career in international education as a Peace Corps English teacher in Cabo Verde, West Africa.