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As a Purdue Engineering alumnus and longtime faculty member and administrator, I am excited to begin my term as dean of a premier U.S. engineering college that is poised for even greater service to students, faculty, staff, alumni, industry and the world.

This issue of ENGINEERING IMPACT covers recent highlights, including our rise to No. 2 in online graduate engineering, collaborations with NCKU in Taiwan and Morgan State University, our increasing semiconductor primacy, a new hypersonics milestone, funding for biomedical research with Indiana University School of Medicine, and a corporate commitment to the Integrated Business and Engineering program. You’ll also learn about key recognitions for alumni, faculty and students.

These accomplishments and many more in recent years reflect the levels of excellence Purdue Engineering has achieved to become one of the most consequential U.S. engineering colleges.

Our ascent continues. Our vision is to build on our foundation of excellence at scale and leverage a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become the most consequential engineering college — by maximizing our positive impact on society. We will draw on our amazingly talented people, society’s critical needs for engineering-centric solutions, our location in the burgeoning tech heartland, and strong internal and external support.

Areas for growth on our radar include becoming the best in class for experiential learning; boosting female and first-gen student enrollments; maximizing research impact; increasing the uptake of research, faculty recognition and national research centers that address challenging problems; and helping advance the state and nation through partnerships with industry and the Indiana government, as well as through entrepreneurship, including from undergraduate students.

Embarking on my new assignment, I am immensely grateful to former Dean Mung Chiang (now Purdue president) and former Interim Dean Mark Lundstrom (now Purdue’s chief semiconductor officer and special advisor to the president), who led us to where we are and remain actively involved in our persistent progress.

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Purdue University online engineering increased its overall standing and remained No. 1 in four categories, placing it among the nation’s elite in the newest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the Best Online Programs.

The rankings, released Jan. 24, list the university’s full array of online engineering graduate programs at No. 2, up from No. 3 in 2022, while Purdue remains in the No. 1 spot in four specific categories.

Collectively, online master’s programs from the Purdue College of Engineering rank second among 119 colleges and universities considered for the rankings after placing third in each of the previous three years. Purdue’s online engineering master’s programs as a whole trail only the University of California, Los Angeles. Among Big Ten schools, Purdue heads the list, with Pennsylvania State University ranked third, ahead of four other Big Ten schools in the top 10: the universities of Illinois (fourth), Michigan (sixth), Wisconsin (eighth) and Nebraska (10th).

Purdue online master’s degrees in electrical engineering, industrial engineering, mechanical engineering and engineering management all rank No. 1 for 2023, as they did in 2022. The online civil engineering master’s is No. 2, also the same as in 2022.

In addition, Purdue‘s ranking in online engineering master’s programs for veterans moved up to No. 4 from No. 5 in 2022.

“The latest U.S. News rankings reflect our ongoing momentum as we expand the range, scale and impact of Purdue engineering’s online learning,” said Mark Lundstrom, interim dean of Purdue’s College of Engineering when the rankings were released. “Our growing suite of courses, certificates and degrees in microelectronic and semiconductor engineering is one recent example of how our faculty, staff, and university and corporate partners are creating online opportunities for students — opportunities that address the nation’s critical need for an expanded and upskilled semiconductor workforce.”

Dimitrios Peroulis, Purdue’s Michael and Katherine Birck Head and Reilly Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said, “Purdue engineering will remain committed to offering quality programs through innovative educational vehicles for our growing online community. We are grateful to our online students, dedicated faculty, academic advisors, success coaches, alumni and Purdue engineering online staff for their critical contributions to this effort.”

Peroulis has served as Engineering’s academic lead for online learning since January 2018 and has been appointed senior vice president of Purdue University Online, effective July 1, 2023.

Purdue is engaged in an initiative to build a best-in-class collection of online courses and programs to serve a variety of students, working professionals and corporate partners with high-quality offerings that address high-need, high-demand areas and are accessible, affordable and demonstrably beneficial.

“At a time when education throughout our lives is more important than ever, Purdue’s leaders recognize that online learning needs to have an integral place in the university’s future and that it is, indeed, central to Purdue’s role as a model 21st-century land-grant institution,” said Gary Bertoline, senior vice president for Purdue University Online and Learning Innovation.

The organizers of the annual U.S. News rankings analyze such factors as the quality of students entering a program; online teaching practices so students stay enrolled and graduate on time; how the programs employ technologies to allow students flexibility; and the quality of student support services, career guidance and financial aid resources.

Also weighed are faculty credentials and training, including the degree to which online instructors’ credentials mirror those of on-campus faculty and the training instructors receive to teach distance learners.

In addition, U.S. News conducts a peer assessment survey of high-ranking academic officials — in the case of the engineering rankings, deans of engineering schools and top online learning leaders — as an important element of reviewing Purdue and other institutions for ranking.

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Highlighting 70 Years of Collaboration

Around 30 administrators, experts, scholars and student affairs professionals from Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) recently visited Purdue University to celebrate 70 years of collaboration. The trip came on the heels of a visit to Taiwan by Purdue Engineering officials and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb in which they signed letters of intent with NCKU and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) to promote industrial upgrades and talent cultivation in both countries.

The bilateral cooperation agreement with NCKU means that Purdue will identify researchers to participate jointly in instrumentation and control design, semiconductor manufacturing and packaging, data science, aerospace, and healthcare projects. Both sides will sponsor academic exchange visits among faculty members and students, as well as establish joint collaborations to support research and workforce development.

NCKU President Huey-Jen Jenny Su led the delegation, meeting with then-Purdue President Mitch Daniels, then-Purdue President-elect Mung Chiang and several faculty members across campus. During a private dinner Aug. 29 at the Purdue Memorial Union, Su told attendees that the two universities share similar roles in their histories.

“It must have been fated for NCKU and Purdue University to become such close partners despite the boundaries of time and distance,” Su said.

Established initially as Tainan Technical College in 1931, NCKU emerged in response to the demands of national industrial development. Similarly, Purdue, as a land grant university, has shouldered the critical task of supporting nationwide development of the agricultural and mechanical industries, Su said.

Chiang recognized and commended the long-standing cooperation between the two universities. He explained that the seven-decade partnership began when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) asked Purdue to help update academic institutions in Taiwan and transform the island’s industries. In response, then-Purdue President Frederick L. Hovde led several faculty members to teach at NCKU, including the “First Lady of Engineering” and Purdue’s first female engineering faculty member, Lillian Gilbreth.

Between 1952-65, Purdue helped revolutionize NCKU into an economic and academic driver and a comprehensive research university by sharing expertise and providing upgraded technology and equipment. To commemorate the collaboration during this era, the NCKU Museum curated an exhibition that was shared with dinner attendees.

During a visit to NCKU in 2018, Chiang signed an agreement with NCKU to establish a dual-degree program and innovative model of collaboration through online coursework. Also that year, NCKU was visited by three additional engineering faculty: George Chiu, professor of mechanical engineering and assistant dean for Global Engineering Programs and Partnerships; Dimitri Peroulis, then-Reilly Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (and now Michael and Katherine Birck Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering); and Tom Shih, then-J. William Uhrig and Anastasia Vournas Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

For years, there have been close ties between the two universities’ faculties. Of the 602 NCKU professors who graduated from U.S. universities, 29 are Purdue alumni, making Purdue the most common alma mater among the faculty.

Mark Lundstrom, then-interim dean of the College of Engineering and special advisor on microelectronics to the executive vice president for strategic initiatives, described the Purdue-NCKU partnership as “everlasting.” He voiced his approval of the start of a summer session at the NCKU Academy of Innovative Semiconductor and Sustainable Manufacturing and the admission of the third class of NCKU-Purdue dual-degree students.

As he reflected on the rich history of Purdue and NCKU’s relationship, Lundstrom shared that from 1953-56, Purdue sent a team of faculty led by Chemical Engineering Professor Norris Shreve to serve as advisors to NCKU, helping to improve teaching practices, strengthen course labs, and enhance lab facilities.

During the recent celebration at Purdue, faculty members from both universities engaged in productive discussions on joint research programs in the areas of semiconductors, sustainable manufacturing, AI, 5G, entrepreneurship, industrial innovation, electrical engineering, computer science, aeronautics and astronautics, physics, nursing, and Asian studies and languages. Before the delegation’s departure, Su and Chiu co-chaired a final report meeting, during which NCKU professors shared highlights of their encounters with their Purdue counterparts.

“What a privilege for all of us engaged in the past, present and future of this NCKU- Purdue partnership,” said Su, summing up the delegation’s time on campus. “Our return trip to Purdue is a sincere tribute to our U.S. friends and our profound commitment to building a visionary future together.”

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Longtime Purdue University administrator, faculty member and Boilermaker alumnus Arvind Raman is the new John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering.

Raman, formerly Purdue’s executive associate dean of engineering and the Robert V. Adams Professor in Mechanical Engineering, brings an impressive record of academic leadership experience to this new role, Patrick Wolfe, Purdue provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity, said in making the announcement Feb. 6.

“Professor Raman is passionate about the role of engineering in creating innovative solutions for people and society. We’re confident that as our next engineering dean, he will lead the college to new levels of excellence and impact,” Wolfe said.

Raman succeeds Mark Lundstrom, the Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has served as interim dean of the college since July 1, 2022. Lundstrom will continue to lead the semiconductors activities across Purdue and its representation in statewide efforts as a senior advisor to the president and chief semiconductor officer.

Raman and Julie Swann, the A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor and department head of the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University, were the two finalists selected by the university’s search advisory committee to make on-campus presentations and hold Q&A sessions the week of Jan. 16.

Out of many strong applicants, the search committee first interviewed 10 semifinalists in December, including a sitting provost, senior associate deans of top engineering colleges, and heads of large departments in AAU universities.

Purdue’s undergraduate and graduate engineering programs are among the top 10 and top five in the country, according to the last two years of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Roughly 30 percent of Purdue undergraduates are enrolled in the engineering college.

In his role as executive associate dean since December 2019, Raman led activities aimed at recruiting excellent and diverse faculty talent, enhancing the success of faculty and staff programs, elevating the prestige of Purdue Engineering, and supporting the overall quality of academic programs and faculty development. He also oversaw the offices of graduate and undergraduate education. Prior, he was the inaugural associate dean for global engineering programs, where, within three years, he helped more than double the number of international experiences taken by Engineering students, and established new partnerships in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Raman said it’s an especially exciting time for Purdue and Engineering, as Mung Chiang has begun his term as Purdue president and Provost Wolfe is in his new role after serving five years as dean of Purdue College of Science. He also noted the transformative development underway for Purdue’s presence in Indianapolis and the momentum from a decade of unprecedented success and growth for Engineering and across the Purdue campus.

“The College of Engineering, in partnership with our faculty, students, staff, alumni and industry partners, is poised for excellence at scale and the promise to pursue and lead truly game-changing initiatives that will impact the state, nation and world,” Raman said. “It is truly an honor to be selected to lead the nation’s largest top-ranked college of engineering at a university with a tremendous legacy and a record of innovation and impact on a global scale.”

Raman was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar from 2008-12 and a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2012. He also has a courtesy professorship appointment in materials engineering.

His research interests are in nonlinear dynamics and its applications to atomic force microscopy, human biomechanics, and roll-to-roll flexible electronics manufacturing. In addition, he is co-founder of the Shah Family Global Innovation Lab, which has supported over 30 faculty-led technology development and scale-up projects with top nongovernmental organizations for sustainable development.

He also served as director of the USAID-funded LASER (Long-term Assistance and SErvices for Research) PULSE (Partners for University-Led Solutions Engine) consortium, leading the five-year, $70 million program. Through its partners Catholic Relief Services, Indiana University, Makerere University and the University of Notre Dame, LASER has delivered research- driven solutions to field-sourced development challenges in USAID (United States Agency for International Development) partner countries.

Raman is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and an ASME Gustus Larson Memorial Award recipient, as well as a Keeley fellow (Oxford), College of Engineering outstanding young investigator awardee, and National Science Foundation CAREER awardee. Through the Purdue-led nanoHUB, Raman’s atomic force microscopy simulation tools are used by thousands of researchers worldwide.

He received his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley; a master’s degree, also in mechanical engineering, from Purdue; and a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

Under former Dean Chiang’s leadership, Purdue’s College of Engineering achieved record levels in undergraduate admissions selectivity, yield rate and graduation rate, as well as enrollment of women and underrepresented minorities. Meantime, the college’s online program size more than quadrupled while its ranking advanced to the top three in the nation. Additionally, new degrees were launched, and the professional master’s program’s enrollment more than quadrupled. Annual research awards surged over 70 percent, including the largest federal and the largest industry funding awards in college history, and 12 national research centers. The college also contributed to Purdue’s Ever True campaign in excess of $1 billion and completed 15 facility construction or renovation projects over the past six years.

The Search Advisory Committee for the new engineering dean was co-chaired by Sasha Boltasseva, the Ron and Dotty Garven Tonjes Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dan DeLaurentis, vice president for research institutes and centers in Discovery Park District at Purdue and professor of aeronautics and astronautics.

Additional search committee members were Barrett Caldwell, professor of industrial engineering; Luciano Castillo, the Kenninger Professor of Renewal Energy and Power Systems in Mechanical Engineering; Panagiota Karava, the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering; Sangtae Kim, Distinguished Professor and the Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Head of Chemical Engineering; Bill Oakes, the 150th Anniversary Professor of Engineering Education; Chi Hwan Lee, the Leslie A. Geddes Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Morgan Broberg, graduate student, civil engineering; and Christine Babick, director of communications for the College of Engineering.

Meet Dean Arvind Raman: https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/MeetDean.

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When First-Year Engineering (FYE) students Aaliyah Crawford and David Amieva flew to Baltimore to visit their design project collaborators and community partner, the project they have been working on diligently since September finally felt real.

Crawford and Amieva are design leads for Purdue’s Environmental Justice and Access Education (EJAE) class, part of Purdue’s Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program. Together with three other FYE students and EJAE advisor and EPICS K-12 Coordinator Charese Williams, Crawford and Amieva traveled to Morgan State University, a Historically Black University in northeast Baltimore. They are collaborating with Morgan State civil engineering students on an ambitious multi-year engineering-based design project, the Better Waverly project.

“We had been in the classroom up to this point, so everything was on paper. It didn’t really set in that it was real until we were actually there walking, seeing where we are going to be building and meeting the people of the community. It’s really exciting,” Crawford said.

The early-October trip marked the beginning of a long-awaited partnership between Purdue’s EPICS program and Morgan State. Through the Better Waverly project, the two universities hope to improve access to essential community resources in the Better Waverly neighborhood and serve as a pilot project for Morgan State’s own EPICS program.

AN AMBITIOUS AND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Purdue founded EPICS, a service-learning design program, in 1995. In the program, student teams are partnered with local and global community organizations and design projects that address human, community and environmental needs. Over the last two decades, the program has expanded to K-12 institutions and other universities. But the Better Waverly project is different from previous EPICS programs, says Bill Oakes, director of the EPICS program at Purdue.

“This is the first time we’ve used EPICS as a linchpin in a strategic new relationship with a university,” Oakes said.

The two universities had been talking about partnership opportunities for years, and this is an exciting endeavor for the schools, he said.

“For me, this is a dream come true. Honestly, this type of relationship, with an institution that has the kind of modern and historical impact as Morgan State and working on something as ambitious as this is, is exciting,” Oakes said.

James Hunter is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Morgan State and part of the effort to bring EPICS to the school. Hunter is a Purdue alumnus and has personal experience with EPICS. He earned his master’s of civil engineering from Purdue in 2002 and his doctorate in civil engineering in 2006. His experience as a teaching assistant in EPICS during his master’s program is one reason he pushed to bring the opportunity to his civil engineering juniors and seniors this year.

“What I love about EPICS, and why I believe it’s such a great match for Morgan State, is when you get a core group of students who are really passionate about these projects, the outcomes are just tremendous,” he said.

STUDENTS EXCITED TO BRING REAL IMPACT TO BETTER WAVERLY

The Better Waverly project is a multi-year project for community partner Garden of Prayer Christian Church, a charming brick building two miles from Morgan State’s campus proper. With EPICS and Morgan State support, the church plans to acquire land to build a community center, medical center, affordable housing and, eventually, another sanctuary with hopes to offer services and resources the community doesn’t currently have.

Crawford, Amieva and the rest of the EJAE team conducted a feasibility study and collected demographic information. Phase one, they decided, is focused on building a community center. In their research, they’ve sought answers to such questions as, what’s the process of acquiring land, demolition and reconstructing different types of buildings?

“A lot of their information up to this point has been understanding that process and sharing it with the Morgan students,” said Williams, a Morgan State alumna of electrical engineering and member of Garden of Prayer.

The three-day trip was the first time the students met their Morgan State collaborators and community partner in person. Crawford said that visiting the campus and meeting their community partner brought a new perspective to the project.

“I think the way we would think about the project here would be a lot different than having a school that’s actually in the community, how they would want to approach it and how they think they could best help their community,” said Crawford. “I think this partnership is particularly important because the Morgan State students can actually see what needs to be done.”

Discussing EPICS with Morgan State students and faculty left Amieva proud to be part of the program.

“The way Dr. Hunter is pushing for EPICS to be integrated into Morgan State’s curriculum really showed its prestige. He held it to a very high standard,” Amieva said. “It just made me feel like I am getting a really good start in terms of real-world experience in an engineering context.”

THE PROJECT IS A MUTUAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

Morgan State hopes to learn from Purdue’s 27-year experience how EPICS could work at their university. Hunter explained that service-learning initiatives in the local community, like the Morgan Community Mile and individual senior capstone projects, have been a focus for the university for a long time. But this partnership offers an interdisciplinary and stakeholder-driven approach to education that provides unparalleled real-world job experience.

“As Morgan is doing more within our own community and expanding our footprint across the city and state, this seems like a really good way to have a very interdisciplinary approach that connects with what our students are learning in the classroom,” Hunter said.

Issues like the urban heat island effect and flooding disproportionately affect communities like Better Waverly that have been impacted by historic redlining and climate change. Hunter said his students look forward to honing in on social and economic divides in the city and trying to improve upon them, particularly environmental justice issues in a community like the ones many of his students grew up in.

“Our students really want to work on projects that have an impact, particularly from the communities that they come from. That’s why the EPICS program is a really good fit,” he said.

The two universities are in the very early stages of the pilot program but are excited about the numerous benefits the experience will bring. Right now, Hunter’s graduate students act as consultants to the FYE students and as “boots on the ground” for the project. Next semester, he hopes to formalize a class around the program and offer it as a senior capstone project.

“They’re going to be going into neighborhoods, working with stakeholders and working on projects that have real impact and real outcomes,” he said. “The students are going to gain that kind of professional development work and technical expertise.”

Amieva said he’s looking forward to working with Morgan State’s graduate students who can skillfully apply the EJAE team’s ideas and bring important insight into the project area.

“They have personal ties with the area and know what is going to work and what isn’t. We’ll bounce ideas off each other, which I’m really looking forward to,” Amieva said.

The experiences opened students’ eyes to new perspectives, too.

It was Amieva’s first time visiting a Black church.

“It was a pretty cool experience,” he said.

Williams explained that building relationships with the community was another important goal of the trip.

“One of the key things with EPICS is that we want our students to be empathetic to the situation to the community partner and really be engaged,” Williams said. “And up to this point, they have truly made it their own.”

SMALL STEPS TOWARD A SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP

During the trip, both universities talked about when and how they’ll communicate and what the partnership will look like in the future, though Williams said they are taking baby steps. EJAE students plan to host their first formal planning meeting with Morgan State students soon to discuss plans for the community center. Advisors look on proudly.

“I think our job is to get the students together and then kind of let them go,” said Hunter. “We’re there to guide, but they are very much thrown into a stakeholder-driven environment. ... Now, they’re getting a lot of good practice. I’m excited about this opportunity and getting our students involved in this program.”

The Better Waverly project is not the first partnership between the two universities. In 2020, the universities came together to offer the “3+2” program. After three years at Morgan State, civil engineering or engineering physics students complete their final two years at Purdue, earning a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. By the end of the program, students will have earned degrees from both universities.

Hunter said that both universities are actively thinking about the future of students in STEM, and the Better Waverly project is another deliberate strategy to bring high-quality programming to students. Next summer, the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) national conference is in Baltimore. Hunter said they hope to offer an EPICS workshop at Morgan State around the same time and invite other universities to learn about the program.

“We’re thinking about the pipeline for this next generation of students who need to go into STEM,” he said. “That pipeline could lead to Morgan State, Purdue or both. I think that’s why this overall partnership and collaboration has such great potential.”

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Purdue University College of Engineering faculty have been tapped for leadership positions in two new research centers launched by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to accelerate U.S. advances in information and communications technologies.

The Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0 (JUMP 2.0) is a public-private partnership co-sponsored by the SRC, DARPA, the commercial semiconductor industry, and the defense industrial base. JUMP 2.0 will pursue high-risk, high-payoff research spanning seven thematically structured centers.

According to a release from the SRC, “each multidisciplinary center will focus on one overarching research theme identified as key to addressing emerging technical challenges. These defined interests, spurred by an increasingly connected world and a rapidly changing microelectronics landscape, will centralize long-term, pathfinding research aimed at breakthroughs applicable across defense and academia.”

Purdue faculty, all representing the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), will take on lead research roles and lend expertise in semiconductors and hard artificial intelligence to two of the centers, in which investment totals $65.7 million. Both multi-university centers are led by Georgia Institute of Technology.

“Semiconductors and AI are technologies fundamentally reshaping our world and the future of humanity. Purdue is leading the nation in advancing these technologies through transformative investments, research and workforce development powered by our world-class faculty and students,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said. “We are happy to continue our leadership through the SRC JUMP 2.0 program.”

In the Center for the Co-Design of Cognitive Systems (CoCoSys), Anand Raghunathan, Silicon Valley Professor in ECE, is the Purdue principal investigator and associate director. Purdue co-PIs are Kaushik Roy, the Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor in ECE; Vijay Raghunathan, ECE professor and director of semiconductor education; and Sumeet Gupta, ECE associate professor.

In the Center on Cognitive Multispectral Sensors (CogniSense), Vijay Raghunathan is the Purdue PI and leader of one of the center’s research themes, and Stanley Chan, ECE associate professor, is the Purdue co-PI.

“The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue has a rich history of leadership in SRC-funded research. We are excited that our faculty are key contributors to these new centers that will strongly impact the future of cognitive sensing and computing systems,” said Dimitri Peroulis, the Michael and Katherine Birck Head and Reilly Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

CoCoSys’ vision is to enable seamless human-AI collaboration. The next wave of AI will impact everyday lives through collaborative intelligent systems such as digital humans and collaborative robots. These systems will drive unprecedented levels of automation, amplify human capabilities and fundamentally reshape the nature of work, personal life and the human experience itself.

CoCoSys researchers will enable human-AI systems through synergistic advances in neuro-symbolic-probabilistic algorithms, technology-driven hardware motifs, algorithm-hardware co-design, and collective and collaborative intelligence.

CogniSense addresses the demand for high-quality unobstructed perception for the safe operation of emerging autonomous systems. Current sensing technologies generate unmanageable data volumes and consume too much power. The center’s vision is to develop cognitive multispectral sensors that directly generate trustworthy insight from wideband multimodal analog signals. By designing sensors that dynamically adapt to “what is being sensed” and “how sensed signals are processed” according to real-time changes in the environment, CogniSense research is projected to dramatically reduce the volume of data produced by these sensors.

In 2018, as part of the SRC/DARPA JUMP 1.0 program, Purdue was selected to lead the Center for Brain-inspired Computing Enabling Autonomous Intelligence (C-BRIC). The $35 million center’s mission is to deliver key advances in cognitive computing, with the goal of enabling a new generation of autonomous intelligent systems.

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Five-Year Extension of Scale Workforce Initiatives Aims to Restore Global Lead Through Education Initiatives

Purdue University announced Sept. 16 the Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement (SCALE) microelectronics workforce development program will extend five years and expand with additional Department of Defense funding of $10.8 million, and a ceiling of $99 million.

SCALE officials said this expansion of the nation’s preeminent program will further its goal to develop a next-generation workforce that can return the United States to prominence in global microelectronics manufacturing.

Led by Purdue, funded by the Department of Defense and managed by Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), SCALE facilitates a different approach to training highly skilled U.S. microelectronics engineers, hardware designers and manufacturing experts. SCALE brings together a public-private-academic partnership of 17 universities and 34 partners within the defense industry and government. The industry and government partners regularly meet and update a list of knowledge, skills and abilities important for new entrants to the workforce. The SCALE universities then update their curriculum to ensure the students are prepared for upcoming needs in the rapidly advancing microelectronics field.

Jennifer Linvill, co-principal investigator of SCALE research and assistant professor of technology leadership and innovation at Purdue Polytechnic Institute, said the newly announced funding will allow recruiting a new, diverse group of students to work in defense microelectronics as interns and after graduating.

Peter Bermel, SCALE director and the Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue, said the United States will need 50,000 trained semiconductor engineers to meet overwhelming and rapidly growing demand.

“The United States is committed to expanding and strengthening its semiconductor industry and workforce rapidly over the next five years,” Bermel said. “SCALE takes a holistic approach to the microelectronics workforce gap by comprehensively addressing system challenges for workforce training and recruiting.”

The funding announcement is the latest highlight in Purdue’s ongoing leadership in microelectronics and workforce development. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo visited the university on Sept. 13 to tour Birck Nanotechnology Center, one of the Purdue facilities helping the United States restore domestic semiconductor manufacturing and competitiveness abroad.

“Purdue’s cutting-edge research and workforce development programs are at the forefront of helping us shape the future of innovation in America’s semiconductor manufacturing industry,” Raimondo said during the tour.

Purdue already has established excellence in other key research areas considered critical to national security, including microelectronics. Strategic initiatives such as the nation’s first comprehensive Semiconductor Degrees Program are intended to prepare a next-generation workforce for industry, while a separate partnership with SkyWater Technology will result in a $1.8 billion future state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing facility.

The SCALE program aligns with economic development work that Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has advanced in recent months, focusing on putting Indiana at the forefront of microelectronics production to bolster the state’s economy and further ensure national security.

Purdue is a national leader in microelectronics device and packaging research, spanning the semiconductor ecosystem in software and hardware. The funding announcement is the latest piece of Purdue’s continually expanding research and development in the field of microelectronics and semiconductors.

Specifically designed microelectronic chips and packages power the technologies used every day from cellphones, computers and cars to pacemakers, the internet and the electrical grid. Their power and affordability have advanced steadily but are reaching the physical limits of standard design and production, which is driving new directions encompassed by SCALE, such as heterogeneous integration. SCALE aims to develop students to be ready to fill every level of the expanding microelectronics workforce.

The demand for microelectronics increased by 26.2 percent in 2021. But while the United States consumes about half of the chips produced worldwide, only about 12 percent are manufactured in this country.

The United States developed microchip technology in the 1950s, and its manufacturing output was 37 percent of the total global output in 1990. However, as manufacturing moved to East Asia — countries including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan — the U.S. global output of semiconductor manufacturing fell to 12 percent in 2021.

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When Purdue launched the nation’s first comprehensive Semiconductor Degrees Program (SDP) in May 2022, it was just one part of the College of Engineering’s plan to aggressively prepare a U.S. workforce ready to handle growing industry demands.

In its continuing commitment to strengthen expertise in microelectronics and semiconductors, the university held a dedicated weeklong event and announced the development of a new course and summer enrichment program.

2022 SEMICONDUCTOR WEEK AT PURDUE

Events the week of Oct. 3-7 drew more than 55 corporate and government executives, who participated in meetings, met with faculty and students, witnessed Purdue’s progress and provided feedback.

INTRODUCTION TO SEMICONDUCTORS COURSE

This interactive, seminar-based, one-credit-hour class introduces the industry and various business models across the entire microelectronics supply chain. The course emphasizes the impact of semiconductors on daily lives and offers career options for engineering and science students. Planned topics include logic microprocessor, memory technology, design, modeling tools, sustainable manufacturing processes and the fabless model.

Created by a team representing the Purdue Office of Professional Practice, Engineering faculty, and industry partners, the course was first offered in the Spring 2023 semester. The course includes a weekly 50-minute session in which industry representatives from diverse technological backgrounds discuss relevant semiconductor products, company profiles, career prospects and skills.

SUMMER TRAINING, AWARENESS, AND READINESS FOR SEMICONDUCTORS (STARS)

Upon successful completion of the Introduction to Semiconductors course requirements, students will be offered opportunities to develop deep-tech skills through the Purdue Summer Training, Awareness, and Readiness for Semiconductors (STARS) program. This on-campus pilot program, which will be structured like a paid internship, will begin in Summer 2023 with at least 50 students. Students will complete eight to 10 weeks of coursework and hands-on activities, including two weeks in the Scifres Cleanroom in the Birck Nanotechnology Center.

Purdue is planning for close collaboration with industry to develop and implement STARS, especially since significant financial and human resources are needed to train 50 students during the 10-week program. Students will have opportunities to interact with industry experts and learn first-hand about technological advances, production processes, and the many career options available to engineers interested in microelectronics.

“Both initiatives are in alignment with Purdue’s commitment to develop a semiconductor workforce at scale through comprehensive and quality learning experiences,” said Mark Lundstrom, serving as interim dean of the College of Engineering when STARS was announced and currently senior advisor to the Purdue president and chief semiconductor officer. “We are confident that these programs will be foundational to address our national need for more semiconductor professionals in the coming decades.”

PRIORITIZING WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT

The Purdue Semiconductor Degree Program is guided by the Semiconductor Degree Leadership Board, composed of executives from 25 leading microelectronics companies. The members met in person on the Purdue campus Oct. 4-5, when they heard updates on workforce development programs, discussed how to attract and retain a diverse pool of students to the industry, and heard the faculty’s vision for educational programs. Industry representatives engaged in discussions and offered feedback related to long-term company trends and strategies to develop robust talent.

During the 2022 Industrial Roundtable, which attracted more than 430 companies, Lundstrom led an information session at the Wilmeth Active Learning Center to introduce students to Purdue’s repertoire of semiconductor opportunities. Representatives from 28 companies involved in the semiconductor and microelectronic fields interacted and networked with students. Tom Sonderman, SkyWater Technology president and CEO, presented his vision of the industry and the company’s plans for the new West Lafayette location.

Furthering its workforce development efforts, Purdue announced in August 2022 its participation in a 12-member network of colleges and universities in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan to form the Midwest Regional Network to Address National Needs in Semiconductors and Microelectronics. Partner institutions will leverage existing research, curricular and experiential learning assets, capabilities, and expertise within the region and grow the collective capacity to support the domestic growth of robust semiconductor and microelectronics innovation and supply chain ecosystems.

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It’s said that if you need something done, ask a busy person. Meet student Hana Wong, who must have to fight off requests. Wong is a participant in SCALE (Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement), the premier U.S. program for semiconductor workforce development in the defense sector. Led by Purdue University, SCALE is funded by the Department of Defense and managed by Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane).

Now a junior at Purdue, Wong began her electrical engineering major by successfully managing 18 credit hours per semester in her first year. Since then she has worked for NASA and General Electric, and for 2023, she has secured opportunities to apply her SCALE acumen in two more choice internships — the first at Tesla this spring, then a summer stint at Intel.

In her “free” time during school, she has worked up to three jobs at once, including shifts as a Boiler Ambassador and a Protect Purdue Ambassador during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She’s also a member of the Purdue Society of Women Engineers and EPICS, Purdue’s Engineering Projects In Community Service program.

When one of Wong’s professors encouraged her to join the SCALE program, she didn’t hesitate. It turned out to be a good way for this ambitious, high-speed intellectual to unwind. “It was very, very low stress,” Wong recalls of her initial SCALE experience. “We learned on our own about design and we collaborated with other universities to hear how they design stuff.”

Every Friday, Wong attended a SCALE meeting about radiation hardening — “rad-hard” techniques. Highly specialized rad-hard skills are in demand because radiation hardening makes electronic components such as semiconductors resistant to damage or malfunction from exposure to high levels of radiation, especially for environments in outer space.

“Basically, we’re protecting components that go up into space, like transistors and computer chips, from the effects of cosmic radiation,” Wong says. “So, we’re seeing how components can be manufactured to be less vulnerable to radiation.”

Wong first learned of rad-hard techniques when she worked at NASA as an attitude control systems intern in the summer of 2021. “I talked to people at NASA about the SCALE program and they were like, ‘Oh, that’s super cool.’ They definitely encouraged me to pursue microelectronics and radiation hardening techniques because there’s definitely a need for it.”

After her time at Tesla this spring, Wong will spend her summer at Intel in a job she says her SCALE experience helped her land. She’ll be part of an engineering group.

“In that group we’ll be designing system-on-chips that make up a lot of Intel’s products,” Wong says. “I’ll be doing verification for different components, different modules and the chips themselves, validating design and basically automating design tasks to make sure that we can produce chips as fast as possible.”

“Overall, SCALE has been really beneficial in not only allowing me to do research, which is a great part and an integral part of microelectronics and radiation-hardening techniques, but also connected me with companies in the industry that actually do that work,” she says. “I’m already set for the spring, the summer, and then looking forward. I definitely would love to pursue a career in microelectronics.”

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Purdue University and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will soon launch a dual-degree master’s program in semiconductors as part of a newly signed agreement to cooperate in education and research in semiconductors and microelectronics.

The proposed dual-degree program will be designed to ramp up skilled talent for the next generation of the semiconductor workforce. It will focus on an innovative, cooperatively developed curriculum to meet the industry’s growing needs. Undergraduate students with strong academic credentials and deep interest in working on topics related to semiconductor devices, chip fabrication, and circuits and systems will be candidates for the future master’s program.

“Purdue University is home to over 2,700 students from India, and Purdue has a long and deep strategic partnership with India and IIT Madras in particular,” said Mung Chiang, Purdue president-elect when the agreement was announced. “We recently launched the first comprehensive Semiconductor Degrees Program (SDP) with the goal of becoming the top source of skilled semiconductor talent for the U.S. We are thrilled to be partnering with IIT Madras on these dual-degree programs to rapidly contribute to the workforce needs of the large semiconductor industry in both the U.S. and India.”

On Nov. 3 at IIT Madras, officials from both institutions signed a letter of intent agreeing to the collaboration. V. Kamakoti, director of IIT Madras and professor of computer science and engineering; Nagendra Krishnapura, professor and head of the IIT Madras Department of Electrical Engineering; and Raghunathan Rengaswamy, dean of global engagement, represented IIT Madras. Representing Purdue were Chiang; Dimitrios Peroulis, the Michael and Katherine Birck Head and Reilly Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Vijay Raghunathan, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of semiconductor education; and Arvind Raman, then-executive associate dean of Purdue’s College of Engineering.

“The India Semiconductor Mission looks at the large-scale development and deployment of microelectronics products,” said Kamakoti. “This joint initiative with Purdue will certainly augment our quality human resource development efforts in semiconductor electronics.”

The partnership also calls for research collaboration in areas such as semiconductor supply-chain management, chip design, packaging, system architecture, and advanced manufacturing methods.

“The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University and the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras have forged particularly strong bonds over many areas in the past,” Peroulis said. “We are delighted to join forces again to address common critical needs in semiconductors and microelectronics.”

Nagendra Krishnapura said the new dual degree will offer students both knowledge and autonomy: “IIT Madras has world-class faculty in the area of semiconductors, from electronic devices to circuits and systems. This new dual-degree program in semiconductors will give students a solid foundation in these areas, while also giving them the freedom and flexibility to specialize in their chosen area of interest. We also expect the program to open new avenues for collaboration in research and teaching with Purdue University in these areas.”

Emphasizing the significance of the two institutions’ collaboration, Vijay Raghunathan of Purdue added: “The semiconductor industry worldwide is facing a tremendous shortage of talent. Purdue and IIT Madras are implementing an innovative program to address this gap by enhancing the best human and curricular resources and leveraging the complementary strengths of the faculty at the two institutions.”

Other aspects of the collaboration include exchange of faculty and research scholars and collaborative research and discovery, learning and teaching, and engagement.

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A Purdue University-led project will receive $5 million in funding through a Greater Lafayette economic development initiative to support the expected regional workforce demand in the promising semiconductor manufacturing industry, Purdue and community officials announced Dec. 7.

Purdue partnered on a Greater Lafayette Commerce proposal that highlighted over 40 regional projects designed to retain and attract workforce talent through the state of Indiana’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI. In December 2021, the six-county Greater Lafayette region was awarded $30 million from the state’s $500 million READI fund, an allocation that was approved by the Indiana General Assembly in its 2021 session.

In the December 2022 announcement, Purdue and Greater Lafayette officials revealed the seven regional READI projects that would share the $30 million in funding, including:

• $5 million for the Purdue-Ivy Tech Community College partnership on the Semiconductors Workforce Development Project to develop the talent pipeline of high school and college students and increase technician and engineer training to support the region’s semiconductor industry.

• $7 million for building infrastructure to support a passenger terminal at Purdue University Airport to help bring commercial air service back to Greater Lafayette. The project team at Purdue Airport is working to identify other sources of funding. After fundraising is completed, the project timeline will be announced. The last commercial flight from Purdue Airport was in 2004.

“We are immensely proud to be a part of the Greater Lafayette community and to continue to contribute to its vibrancy,” said Mung Chiang, then-Purdue president-elect. “We thank the READI board and the outstanding READI program by Gov. (Eric) Holcomb and IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corp.) that provides a key opportunity for economic growth. This region that includes Tippecanoe County is well poised to become an engine in creating the ‘hard-tech corridor’ of our state.”

The Semiconductors Workforce Development Project is geared to support the plan by Bloomington, Minnesota-based SkyWater Technology to invest $1.8 billion for locating a major semiconductor manufacturing facility in Discovery Park District at Purdue.

Announced in July, the SkyWater project is expected to create 750 Greater Lafayette jobs — 350 technicians and manufacturing positions at $60,000 a year; 200 operations engineering and facilities, maintenance, and tech support positions at annual salaries of $100,000; and 200 research and development engineering, technology development and management positionsat$130,000ayear.

“Purdue is delighted to deepen our collaboration with Ivy Tech to create and implement semiconductor workforce development programs that will benefit the entire Greater Lafayette region,” said Mark Lundstrom, then-interim dean of Purdue’s College of Engineering.

“With semiconductor companies and their suppliers and service providers, the resulting economic impact in the region will be immense,” Lundstrom added, “and this will only be possible with a talent pipeline that includes high school graduates, skilled technicians with AS degrees, and engineers with BS, MS and PhD degrees.”

The Purdue-Ivy Tech workforce partnership also aligns with a Purdue Research Foundation goal to work with the Indiana Uplands region and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, to leverage Purdue’s R&D in the semiconductor space. Studies show that every single semiconductor job in the United States, for example, supports 5.7 other jobs in the economy.

Outlined by Gov. Holcomb in his State of the State address in January, READI leveraged $500 million from federal COVID-19 relief funds for Indiana that could be allocated for regions across the state to jump-start larger economic development projects.

In its 74-page proposal to the state’s READI program in September 2021, Greater Lafayette submitted a funding request for 43 regional projects totaling $131 million. Greater Lafayette was among 17 regions, together representing all 92 Indiana counties, that took advantage of the READI program. The project grants must be matched by local public, private or philanthropic funds.

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Carol Handwerker, the Reinhardt Schuhmann, Jr. Professor of Materials Engineering and Professor of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, has been appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The IAC, established in late 2021, provides guidance to the secretary of commerce, through NIST, on the science and technology needs of the nation’s domestic microelectronics industry, the effectiveness of the national strategy in supporting U.S. leadership in microelectronics manufacturing, the research and development programs and other advanced microelectronics activities funded through CHIPS for America, and opportunities for new public-private partnerships.

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At the first alumni and friends gatherings in the new year, Purdue University President Mung Chiang and then-Interim Engineering Dean Mark Lundstrom visited Silicon Valley on Jan. 30. In his presentation, “Chips@Purdue, Silicon in the Heartland,” Lundstrom shared how Purdue is advancing semiconductor research and building the workforce of the future. More than 250 alumni, parents and corporate partners attended.

The trip also featured a meeting about Boilermaker entrepreneurship with SVBIG (Silicon Valley Boilermaker Innovation Group), which has mentored more than 50 Purdue startups to date. Chiang will continue to engage with alumni throughout the country in the coming months.

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Stratolaunch LLC and Purdue University announced they have established a partnership dedicated to accelerating the time required to design, build, test and fly hypersonic vehicles.

Stratolaunch will establish the Stratolaunch Advanced Programs Office at the Convergence Center in Purdue’s Discovery Park District in West Lafayette, Indiana, to ensure the goals of their collaboration will be rapidly achieved. The office will be led by an experienced advanced design director with support staff that will offer opportunities for student internships.

Through their collaboration, Stratolaunch and Purdue will leverage the university’s world-class multidisciplinary hypersonic design methods, ground test facilities, faculty, staff, and students to anchor ground simulations. By combining this capability with Stratolaunch’s rapid prototyping fabrication, flight test service, as well as hypersonic flight test data from the Talon-A, the integrated team will develop methodologies to accelerate the design to fly time of hypersonic systems.

Stratolaunch recently funded a one-year collaborative research project with four Purdue faculty experts and their graduate students to explore and establish a foundation of best-in-class computational and experimental capabilities, which can be used to create the most comprehensive suite of flight-validated air vehicle design optimization tools.

“I’m excited for our partnership with Purdue because of the positive implications it has for streamlining our nation’s hypersonic design capabilities,” said Dr. Zachary Krevor, CEO and president at Stratolaunch. “Reducing development and test timelines of hypersonic vehicles is paramount to achieving critical leap-ahead technologies.”

“Stratolaunch’s unique capacities to provide access to flight data in long-duration hypersonic conditions complements Purdue’s advanced hypersonics laboratories and the cutting-edge research by our faculty to advance these technologies while providing our students with real-world learning experiences,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said. “Stratolaunch’s office at Discovery Park District further strengthens Purdue as an epicenter of hypersonic research and testing in the country.”

“Any effort to increase the speed of ‘continuous learning’ in hypersonic systems design and deployment is a major win for our nation’s defense,” said Dan DeLaurentis, vice president for Discovery Park District institutes. “The world-class Purdue computational and ground test research capabilities, combined with the premier hypersonics flight test capability of Stratolaunch, is exactly such an effort, and yet another new avenue for developing and retaining the best talent so desperately needed in this domain.”

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Raytheon Technologies Corp. (NYSE: RTX), one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world, has committed $4 million to Purdue University for a named chair position in the university’s reimagined and newly named Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business.

This new position, named the Raytheon Technologies Chair in Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE), will support faculty leadership, discovery and engagement within business and STEM intersections. Purdue’s recently inaugurated IBE program is a foundational component of the new business school, which was unveiled in September as the next big move in a decadelong series of major strategic investments by the university.

“This partnership with Raytheon Technologies represents a significant achievement for Purdue and our new business school,” said Mung Chiang, president of Purdue University. “Our goal is to develop a world-class business school through this relaunch, one that develops leaders at the intersection of business and technology who can create growth and make breakthroughs.”

This partnership expands on Purdue’s long-standing relationship with Raytheon Technologies.

“Fully integrating business and engineering expertise is essential to the future of both our industry and American competitiveness on the global stage,” said Greg Hayes, chief executive officer of Raytheon Technologies. “Continuing to evolve the way that we teach — and learn — about developing innovative solutions to the world’s most complex challenges is the only way forward. This chair position is part of our commitment to that end.”

Raytheon has many employees enrolled in Purdue’s ecosystem of educational offerings, including approximately 30 engineers who began taking courses in the business school’s executive training program in 2022. The company is also a top employer of Purdue students.

“Purdue and Raytheon Technologies both have their eyes on the future, and we share an interest in cultivating well-rounded leaders,” Chiang said. “We have already established an important relationship with them, particularly in research and development. This gift is an incredibly meaningful expansion of our collaboration.”

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Purdue’s next big move in a decadelong series of major strategic investments will honor a celebrated president who led transformative change during his tenure, as plans for the state-of-the-art Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business were approved Feb. 3 by the university’s Board of Trustees. The reimagined Daniels School will prepare tomorrow’s leaders and entrepreneurs, grounding them in the hallmarks of a Purdue education, including STEM disciplines and business analytics.

“To be associated with any aspect of Purdue’s academic enterprise is an inestimable honor, but this one in particular touches me deeply,” said Daniels, Purdue’s 12th president, who retired from the role in December. “Practiced with integrity, business careers are the noblest of life choices; they create new jobs and wealth for others and bring into being the resources which the public and nonprofit sectors take to pursue their goals. This modernized School of Business will send out its graduates armed with a sense of mission and the tools to fulfill that mission in the most complex of enterprises.”

This announcement marks the first time Purdue’s business school will have a formal name. The board committed to retaining the Krannert name, long associated with the school’s graduate offerings since the naming began, for its graduate and executive degree programs within the newly named Daniels School.

Charting a new course for business education, the Daniels School will be marked by graduates who embody the values of wisdom and creativity, grounded in a firm grasp of today’s technologies and their likely evolution; who are aware of the history of progress that freedom of enterprise has created and continues to advance; and who are trained to lead and inspire others with strength and decisiveness. The reimagined Daniels School will instill these values and qualities, preparing each graduate as they leave Purdue to found and lead businesses and be the successful entrepreneurs and industry leaders of tomorrow.

The new name not only celebrates Daniels’ acclaimed tenure as Purdue president, but also his highly reputed business acumen in the private sector and as the 49th governor of Indiana.

“President Emeritus Mitch Daniels is regarded as the most innovative university president in America, and his private sector business leadership is as outstanding as his public service. It is truly fitting and exciting to place his name upon this impactful growth to the Purdue landscape,” said Mung Chiang, Purdue’s 13th president. “Through the launch of the Daniels School of Business, Purdue will have a world-class business school that carries out even more top-caliber research and educates many future leaders of a technology-driven, free market economy.”

Mike Berghoff, chair of Purdue’s Board of Trustees, said Purdue will invest a minimum of $100 million into the relaunch, along with a fundraising campaign of $200 million from loyal donors, underlining the determined commitment to making the Daniels School of Business one of the foremost business schools in the nation through new academic programs, innovative learning opportunities and top-notch faculty recruits.