Purdue ECE welcomes IEEE Fellow Xipeng Shen through Moveable Dream Hires Program
IEEE Fellow Xipeng Shen will join Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in fall 2026 as part of Purdue’s Moveable Dream Hires program, a strategic initiative designed to recruit top-tier faculty when transformative talent becomes available.
Shen brings national recognition and deep expertise in intelligent, adaptive software systems that power modern AI and large-scale computing.
“Xipeng’s research bridges software, systems and machine learning in ways that are critical to the next generation of AI technologies,” said Milind Kulkarni, the Michael and Katherine Birck Head of Purdue ECE. “His leadership in adaptive and heterogeneous computing will accelerate Purdue’s strengths in AI hardware, high-performance systems and cross-disciplinary innovation.”
Currently a professor of computer science at North Carolina State University, Shen was recently named an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow for “outstanding contributions in the field of dynamic optimizations and compiler technologies in heterogeneous computing.” IEEE Fellow is the organization’s highest grade of membership and one of the most prestigious honors in engineering and computing.
Making AI Systems Smarter and More Efficient
Today’s computing platforms combine CPUs, GPUs and specialized accelerators — an approach known as heterogeneous computing. While this design enables powerful AI and scientific applications, it also creates new software challenges. Programs must adapt intelligently to different processors and workloads to reach peak performance and efficiency.
Shen’s research addresses that problem directly.
He developed compiler and runtime techniques that allow software to adapt dynamically at runtime, optimizing execution across processors based on workload behavior and hardware characteristics. His work demonstrated that heterogeneous systems can achieve consistent performance gains while remaining portable and programmable.
“Advances in heterogeneous computing directly shape the performance, efficiency and feasibility of modern applications,” Shen said. “They influence everything from scientific discovery and AI to everyday computing experiences.”
Launching the Intelligent Software Center
At Purdue in Indianapolis, Shen will help establish the Intelligent Software Center (ISC), a cross-disciplinary hub connecting Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering and related fields.
The center will pioneer AI-driven software systems that are adaptive, efficient and trustworthy — systems that learn and evolve with their environments. Its goal is to position Purdue as a national leader in intelligent software spanning platforms from edge devices to supercomputers.
Shen said Purdue’s engineering strength and research vision made the move compelling.
As AI systems grow larger and computing infrastructure becomes more complex, intelligent software will determine how efficiently next-generation technologies operate. With Shen’s arrival, Purdue ECE strengthens its leadership in adaptive systems that will shape the future of computing.
Outside the lab, Shen enjoys playing pickleball, a community-driven sport he values for connection as much as competition.