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Matthew Sunday
"My Purdue engineering education has been the foundation of my professional success as it pushed me academically and personally, fostering growth in myriad ways. Through it, I've connected with diverse cultures and cutting-edge technologies, challenging and reshaping previous understandings. While leading part of the Purdue Engineering Student Council, I honed leadership skills crucial for my continued professional leadership at Boeing. Purdue's emphasis on needing to challenge assumptions with facts and data and its application-based approach taught me to navigate real-world challenges with confidence. Purdue has not just equipped me with knowledge; it's instilled in me a mindset for success."
Matthew Sunday | Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
Director and Chief Engineer, Avionics Engineering, The Boeing Company
At The Boeing Company, Matthew Sunday is responsible for 100+ different computers' development and certification efforts
across all of the company's airplanes and also reports to the CEO on a weekly basis. He embarked on his Boeing career 12
years ago as a lead engineer with five direct reports and is now director and chief engineer of avionics engineering,
heading up a team of 600 engineers. In his role, he routinely challenges the status quo and pushes boundaries, and his
ownership-based leadership style is driving change through facts and data and is guiding his company and the industry to
continuously strive toward safer and more sustainable air travel.
He developed and certified the first touchscreen on any of Boeing's airplanes, a process that entailed all aspects of
pilot interface, regulator engagements, and customer demonstrations. The project is estimated to reduce maintenance
costs of $80K per day across the entire fleet while ushering in a generational leap in flight deck technologies and
providing future growth potential to reduce weight and implement new features.
Sunday led Boeing's 5G interference efforts, mitigating a U.S. National Air Space shutdown (valued by the secretary of
transportation to be $20B+) and retrofitted more than 4,000 planes with new radio altimeters in a historical six-month
timeframe. His leadership on the $500M Avionics Development Project ushered in new functionality for decreased fuel burn
and weight savings, ultimately reducing cancelled flights and conserving fuel. In addition, he steered the GPS
Interference Implementation Plan, which will retrofit and impact more than 10,000 planes over the next five years.