Keith Rhoades

Purdue Engineering taught me about problem solving - and not just in the classroom - but how to balance a life filled with passions beyond tools and math, but in sports and music. Much of the problem-solving techniques boil into the methodology I use every day - be it for my professional work, or personal life. And for that I'm truly grateful to be a lifelong Boilermaker."
Keith Rhoades | Multidisciplinary Engineering
Global Director, Interek RiSE
It's more than likely that Keith Rhoades has worked on at least one of the products on your desk, in your child's
toybox, or in your refrigerator, medicine cabinet or snack drawer. Currently the global director at Interek RiSE, he has
advanced six levels within the company in nine years. He is a "myth buster" of sorts, defining risks in the
consumer-product experience. The scope of his work is wide and encompasses recent hazard assessment techniques in
anthropometrics, eye impact injuries, suffocation, airway obstruction and aspiration, human and canine bio-mechanic
interaction, and CO2 rebreathing.
One project close to his heart centers around button cell battery ingestion by children. His research laid the
foundation for a new medical standard of care in the United States and six other countries. Thanks to his work, a new
law requiring mitigation strategies to limit accessibility to these batteries went live in March 2024.
Rhoades is co-founder of the non-profit Global Injury Research Collaborative (GIRC) and its companion app. The app
established a groundbreaking initiative in injury prevention and equips medical professionals with the tools to
anonymously report relevant details of product-related injuries. Over 600 medical experts have registered and
contributed since its launch. In 2022, he co-founded a student mentorship program for the International Consumer
Products Health and Safety Organization. To date, 30 students have been accepted into the program, including five
Boilermakers, and 13 already have found their way into a product safety profession. As a co-investigator, he has been
awarded a five-year National Institutes of Health Grant to research root causes of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
Syndrome as they relate to infant breathing and biomechanics.