From the Dean: April 2022
Dear Purdue Engineering Community,
In last year's U.S. News & World Report annual graduate rankings, our College of Engineering was ranked among the top 5 for the first time since 1994. In the latest rankings, released this week, Purdue Engineering is again ranked #4 in the U.S. For the first time on record, we have back-to-back top 4 rankings in the country.
Furthermore, with eight of our 12 departmental rankings going up this year and one staying as #1, we have almost all of our graduate degree programs in the top 15 in the country, including nine among the top 11. (And for biomedical, among the universities without a medical school, Purdue BME is top 7.) This discipline-specific ranking vector is also the best we have received since comprehensive graduate rankings started.
While all rankings are partial, noisy, and no reason to be complacent, for our continuous upward momentum we thank the faculty, students, and staff at the College, the caliber and impact of whose work are reflected in the Pinnacle of Excellence at Scale.
During the last spring break, Purdue Road School became the first large conference on campus since the pandemic, attracting more than 2,700 in-person participants across the transportation sector at the smart Crossroads of America. Last month, we also celebrated the latest successes in one of Purdue’s Next Moves strategic initiatives: National Security Technologies, including additive manufacturing for hypersonics, led by AAE Professor Michael Sangid, and the Air Force Research Lab's midwest regional hub, led by ME Professor Jeff Rhoads. Earlier in the month, along with many partners across the state of Indiana, we hosted the Life Science Manufacturing Summit in Indianapolis to advance manufacturing for biopharma and medical devices. This initiative, along with the manufacturing of semiconductors, are becoming key pillars of Purdue's nationally visible contributions to research, workforce, and industry growth.
Next week is both E-week and Graduate Students Appreciation Week. Together with undergraduate and graduate students, we have a range of activities planned. Thanks to the input from many, we have also been updating our social media presence. For example, the Rupert Drop video on YouTube has been watched more than 65 million times over the last four years, and Purdue Engineering's YouTube channel has 80,000 subscribers now. In general, we use
- YouTube for engagement and educational videos: please subscribe here
- Instagram for communications with students: please follow us here
- LinkedIn for partnership and alumni outreach: please connect here
On April 27, Purdue Day of Giving will be back on campus in person. Similar to what student leaders from PESC and PEPC suggested in 2019 when we last had a “physical” Day of Giving, we will team up a relay run to raise donations for student organizations. A team of 12 runners (students, alumni, staff, and faculty, myself included) will attempt to finish a relay that adds up to 20.22 miles in under 200 minutes starting at noon. Each relay round begins at the Armstrong statue and passes through the Convergence building in Discovery Park District along State Street. As it will be 111 weeks since the coronavirus “officially” hit campus and Boilermakers succeeded in Protecting Purdue, we hope you and your friends will consider making a pledge to donate (A) $11.1, or (B) $111, or (C) $1,110, to a student organization of your choice. It does not have to be an engineering organization either. For example, I will pledge (C) to the Ukrainian Student Association. A link to the website for donation pledge will be communicated with you next week.
On the Day of Giving as on any day, Boiler Up!
Mung
Mung Chiang
John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering
Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Purdue University