From the Dean

Greetings from Purdue! In this issue of Engineering Impact Online, we’re once again pleased to share with you snapshots of some of the many, many ways Purdue Engineering faculty, students, and alums are having an impact on the world.

It’s estimated that 4.55 billion people worldwide will use a mobile phone this year.  Unfortunately, there are limitations on how data can be retrieved on these devices. With his research team, Eugenio Culurciello, associate professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Psychological Sciences, is developing technology that will enable a conventional smartphone processor to run deep-learning software. This software could make it possible to analyze videos or pictures the way you do now over the Internet.

New “plasmonic metamaterials” that operate at high temperatures could radically improve solar cell performance and provide advanced computer data storage technology that uses heat to record information on a magnetic disk. Purdue Engineering researchers Alexandra Boltasseva and Vladimir M. Shalaev have formed a startup company, Nano-Meta Technologies Inc., based at the West Lafayette Purdue Research Park.

The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that 1 in 5 people in the U.S. will be over age 65 by 2030, making older adults the fastest-growing segment of the population by number. With aging comes an increased incidence of chronic diseases. Benjavan “Den” Upatising, who earned a PhD in industrial engineering in August 2013, was Purdue’s first Mayo Clinic Healthcare Engineering Fellow with Purdue’s Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. Currently working as a research scientist at the center, Upatising continues to study whether home telemonitoring can positively affect the health and well-being of this vulnerable population.

And finally I invite you to read about Vu Lam, MSEE ’90, whose road to becoming an international software entrepreneur began with the fall of Saigon in 1975. The 8-year-old Lam fled Vietnam for refugee camps in Malaysia before finally being reunited with his father in Chicago. He quickly assimilated, graduating as valedictorian, class treasurer and member of the newspaper staff at his Chicago high school, which earned him a National Merit Scholarship. While working at Bell Labs, Lam earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Purdue. Coming full circle, Lam is now using his engineering skills to develop companies that train and employ engineers in Vietnam.

I hope you’ll also check out "Extraordinary People, Extraordinary Growth, Extraordinary Impact.”  This integrates the themes of Engineering’s strategic growth and our strategic plan, and forms the new framework for the College of Engineering’s vision for the future. These are exciting times at Purdue!

Sincerely,

Leah H. Jamieson
The John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering