Mung Chiang, Purdue University’s John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering, has been elected one of seven international fellows of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2020.

Technology similar to massive search engines used to scour the web may soon be used to provide new insights into consumer behavior and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on economies across the world. The technology also may be a useful tool for reducing misinformation in news media.

Is it possible to read a person’s mind by analyzing the electric signals from the brain? The answer may be much more complex than most people think.

Yung-Hsiang Lu, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been chosen to the 2021 class of newly elevated fellows of the IEEE. Lu was named for his contributions to energy efficiency of computer systems. His research focus is mobile and cloud computing, energy-efficient computing, and image and video processing.

Jay Knepp, a computer engineering major, created the light level meter for which Purdue has received the 2020 APPA Effective and Innovative Practices Award. The portable light level meter has changed the way campus light levels are collected and analyzed and has been transformative for project planning within the department.

Well before the reality of a global pandemic, Purdue was creating online versions of many of its engineering labs, so the College of Engineering’s virtual lab initiative didn’t start with COVID-19 in mind.

Electronics are increasingly being paired with optical systems, such as when accessing the internet on an electronically run computer through fiber optic cables. But meshing optics — which relies on particles of light called photons—with electronics—relying on electrons — is challenging, due to their disparate scales. Electrons work at a much smaller scale than light does. The mismatch between electronic systems and optical systems means that every time a signal converts from one to the other, inefficiency creeps into the system.

The Indy Autonomous Challenge will bring together collegiate teams from around the world next October to run autonomous race cars around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s famed 2.5-mile oval.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has elected three Purdue ECE professors to NAI Fellow status. Alexandra Boltasseva, Ron and Dotty Garvin Tonjes Professor of ECE, Mung Chiang, the Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor of ECE and the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering, and Haiyan Wang, Basil S. Turner Professor of Engineering, join 175 prolific academic innovators from across the world in the 2020 class of Fellows.

The Purdue DIRTS (Degradable and Intelligent Radio Transmitting Sensor) team won 10,000 euros and the opportunity to showcase their solution in front of representatives from key industry leaders, startups and institutions during a presentation in October.