Purdue University on Saturday (Oct. 12) announced three recipients of the merit-based Homecoming Pillars of Excellency during halftime of the Homecoming football game against Maryland. Homecoming marked the end of the university’s 150th anniversary celebration.

Purdue University scientists and engineers are collaborating with colleagues at North Carolina State University and others on fifth-generation (5G) and beyond wireless network research that holds promise for improved farm machinery automation.

Prof. Shreyas Sen is a featured speaker at a Silicon Flatirons conference entitled “Saving Our Spectrum: Handling Radio Layer Vulnerabilities in Wireless Systems.” The half-day conference brings together representatives from government, industry, and academia to discuss the intersection of cybersecurity and radio operation, explore the risks of increasing reliance on wireless systems and access to spectrum, and consider solutions to these problems.

The College of Engineering recently held its 2019 annual Dean’s Dinner and alumni awards presentation. ECE alumnus Elmore “Bill” W. Rice III (BSEE ’54) was one of three Purdue Engineering alumni honored at the event.

The Schools of Civil Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering are planning to offer affordable online Master’s programs through edX with support from Kaplan Higher Education. This is the first comprehensive engineering post-graduate curricula provided online at less than $25K for master’s degrees. Purdue is ranked among the top ten engineering programs and top five online engineering graduate programs in the U.S.

Prof. Vladimir Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will receive the 2020 Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids. The prize from the American Physical Society honors outstanding optical research that leads to breakthroughs in the condensed matter sciences.

A new competition sponsored by the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering asks Purdue students to propose novel solutions to important unsolved societal problems. Prof. Babak Ziaie says the Ideas and Innovation Tournament Challenge is open to all Purdue students and simulates the experience of being an engineer entrepreneur.

It may still be decades before quantum computers are ready to solve problems that today’s classical computers aren’t fast or efficient enough to solve, but the emerging “probabilistic computer” could bridge the gap between classical and quantum computing.

Prof. Shreyas Sundaram is co-chairing the 8th International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Workshop on Distributed Estimation and Control in Networked Systems (NecSYS). The workshop will focus on the most innovative mathematical methods proposed in the last few years for the analysis and design of networked systems.

In the U.S. News & World Report survey "Best Colleges 2020" Purdue's College of Engineering ranked 9th nationally among doctoral-granting universities. Electrical Engineering came in at #9, while Computer Engineering ranked #10.