6 Purdue engineers elected as National Academy of Engineering members
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Six engineers affiliated with Purdue University have earned one of the field’s highest professional distinctions: membership in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Current faculty members Vladimir M. Shalaev and Yuehwern Yih have been elected for induction into the NAE’s Class of 2025. They represent the largest number of current Purdue faculty inducted into the NAE in nearly two decades.
Other members of the new class with Purdue engineering ties include alumni Jón Atli Benediktsson, Lisa Brannon-Peppas and Patrick Chapman, and former Purdue mechanical engineering professor Suresh Garimella.
“We are thrilled and proud that a record-high number of Purdue engineers were inducted into the prestigious National Academy of Engineering this year,” said Arvind Raman, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering. “This is richly deserved recognition for their tremendous research impact and national leadership spanning national security, health care and mass transit.”
NAE membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education, including significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.” NAE members are among the world’s most accomplished engineers from business, academia and government.
The newly elected class will be formally inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting on Oct. 5.
Meet the new NAE members
Shalaev is the Bob and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The NAE is recognizing him for “contributions to negative-refractive-index material at optical frequencies and metamaterial applications for national security.”
Highly acclaimed for his impact in the field of physics, Shalaev specializes in quantum photonics, plasmonics and optical metamaterials. His work is advancing technologies in telecommunications, imaging, sensing and quantum computing. Shalaev is a pioneer in nanophotonics and metamaterials, known for his foundational theories and experimental designs. His research includes the first demonstrations of negative-refractive-index materials at optical frequencies, a breakthrough that has inspired advances in photonics and quantum technologies.
Among previous honors, he has been named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher multiple times, as well as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Materials Research Society, American Physical Society (APS), and Optica.
He has also received the APS Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids, the Optica (formerly Optical Society of America) Max Born Award, the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, and the IEEE Photonics Society William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award.
Yih is the Tompkins Professor in the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering, director of the Smart Operations and Systems Laboratory, and former director of the LASER PULSE consortium at Purdue.
The NAE is electing her for “contributions to supply chain management systems in humanitarian relief efforts and health care.”
Yih’s research focuses on system modeling and decision-making for complex systems and operations. Applications span manufacturing, warehouses, supply chains, a water treatment system for a mission to Mars, riot prediction, humanitarian relief, health care engineering, and global challenges in lower- and middle-income countries. In health care, Yih has directly improved clinic operations, saving lives and enhancing care of HIV patients and premature babies. Her work in last-mile humanitarian supply chains, implemented in South Sudan and Ukraine, have delivered lifesaving commodities to over 1 million people affected by drought and conflicts.
Her previous recognitions have included being named a fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering program, and receiving the IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award.
Benediktsson (MS electrical engineering ’87, PhD electrical engineering ’90) is rector/president and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Iceland.
The NAE is honoring him for “contributions to design and application of advanced machine learning and morphological methods in information analysis of multisource sensing data.”
Benediktsson’s research fields are remote sensing, image analysis, pattern recognition, machine learning, data fusion, analysis of biomedical signals, and signal processing.
He has served as president of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and established and chaired IEEE’s Iceland Section. Among previous honors, Benediktsson is a fellow of IEEE and the International Society for Optics and Photonics, and he was named Electrical Engineer of the Year by IEEE and the Association of Chartered Engineers in Iceland.
Brannon-Peppas (MS chemical engineering ’86, PhD chemical engineering ’88) is founder and president of PeppChem Consulting in Austin, Texas.
NAE is recognizing her for “contributions to the targeted drug delivery of chemotherapeutic agents and contributions to biomaterials swelling, and for biomedical leadership.”
Brannon-Peppas has made leading contributions in nanoparticle research, biomaterials, controlled drug delivery, and structure-property relationships of biomaterials, including her pioneering contributions to the theory of biomaterials swelling.
She has been named a fellow of the Society for Biomaterials and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, and she received the 2008 Chemical Engineering Practice Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Chapman (PhD electrical and computer engineering ’00) is chief executive officer of Startup in Energy Systems in Austin, Texas.
His NAE honor is for “the development of reliable inverters enabling large-scale photovoltaic energy system deployment.”
Chapman is an experienced technology leader with a background in power electronics, systems engineering, energy storage, renewable energy, intellectual property and entrepreneurship.
He is a senior member of the IEEE and served as the general chair for the 2011 IEEE Applied Power Electrics Conference. He has also received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and the Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award.
Garimella, currently president of the University of Arizona, is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue, where he was the Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and executive vice president for research and partnerships.
The NAE is recognizing him for “contributions to microscale heat and mass transport, academic leadership, and service to the nation.”
As a researcher, Garimella has made seminal contributions to electronics, thermal management and energy efficiency at micro- and nanoscales, and in sustainable energy systems technology and policy. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Garimella also is an important contributor in national and international policy matters. He currently is a member of the National Science Board, chairs the research advisory board of Sandia National Laboratories, and is a member of the board of directors at Modine and the executive committee for the Council on Competitiveness.
Read the NAE announcement here.
About Purdue University
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Media contact: Kayla Albert, wiles5@purdue.edu