At the conclusion of a national search, Dan DeLaurentis was named Purdue’s executive vice president for research in May 2025. A longtime Purdue administrator, award-winning scholar and educator, DeLaurentis now leads research across all of Purdue, totaling more than $600 million in awards from federal and industry sources.
“Dan DeLaurentis has been an outstanding leader, including over two decades of success at Purdue,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said at the time of the announcement. “Dan will work with the entire campus to lead Purdue research at a time of national transformation.”
DeLaurentis, the Bruce Reese Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautic, has been vice president for Institutes and Centers at Discovery Park District at Purdue since 2023. Under his leadership, the 15 Discovery Park District centers and institutes were involved in more than $205 million — a record 32% of Purdue’s total funded research in 2024.
Wenbin Yu, the Milton Clauser Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been selected as a Fulbright U.S. Distinguished Senior Scholar. His research, “Multiscale Constitutive Modeling of Bio-inspired Metamaterials,” will be conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel from December 2025 through April 2026.
Yu also received the ASC Award in Composites from the American Society of Composites.
