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May 2026
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U.S. News & World Report Rankings 2026 | ||||||
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| | TOP NEWS | ||||||
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David Simchi-Levi Joins Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering One of the world's foremost authorities on supply chain management and business analytics, David Simchi-Levi has joined Purdue University, holding a joint appointment in the Mitch Daniels School of Business and the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering. Simchi-Levi, who led the Data Science Lab at MIT, established a new center on Data Science for Decision Making, focused on AI-driven methodologies for decision-making under uncertainty. A National Academy of Engineering member with an H-index of 89 and over 40,000 citations, he brings extraordinary depth in operations research, analytics, and industry partnership to Purdue. | ||||||
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| Strong Showing at 2026 IISE Annual Conference The Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering was well represented by students, faculty, and alumni at the 2026 IISE Annual Conference, earning numerous awards, including the top honor in a prominent new award category!
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| Grid of Tomorrow Industry Consortium Continues to Build Momentum Purdue Engineering's Grid of Tomorrow Consortium (GOTC) has welcomed four major energy-sector leaders: Tesla, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E, CEO Patti Poppe, BSIE '89, MSIE '90, Purdue), Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and Schneider Electric as new partners in its effort to modernize the U.S. electric grid. Directed by Associate Professor Andrew Liu, the consortium focuses on high-impact challenges including data center load growth, interconnection bottlenecks, and AI-driven grid analytics. Sivaranjani "Siva" Seetharaman is among the Purdue researchers contributing expertise to the initiative. A third GOTC workshop was held in February 2026 in San Ramon, California, bringing together researchers and industry leaders to co-develop practical, scalable solutions for a rapidly changing energy landscape. | ||||||
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| | NEW FACULTY & PROMOTIONS | ||||||
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| Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering Welcomes Hugo Caballero, Hyesun Chung, and James Mann this fall. During the '26-'27 academic year the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering will welcome several new faculty members from a wide variety of backgrounds, adding even more talent to our already strong world-class faculty. | ||||||
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| Three New Rising Stars The Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering is proud to announce three new rising star professorships, thanks to the generosity of our esteemed alumni. Joaquín Goñi Cortes Juan Ernesto de Bedout Rising Star Associate Professor | Joint Appointment with Biomedical Engineering Graph Theory and Network Science; Neuroimaging and Brain Connectomics Behzad Esmaeili Dr. Rohan & Mrs. Merle Phillips Rising Star Associate Professor | Joint Appointment with Civil Engineering Construction Safety & Risk Management Denny Yu Cubitt Rising Star Associate Professor | Courtesy appointment in School of Health Sciences Neuroadaptive systems for supporting Human Machine Interaction | ||||||
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| Faculty Promotions and Leadership The Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering is pleased to announce that Cubitt Rising Star Associate Professor Denny Yu has been promoted to Full Professor, and Associate Professor of Practice Ben Fong has been promoted to Full Professor of Practice. In addition to these promotions, Susan Hunter and Mario Ventresca have been named Associate Head, with Hunter taking the lead on graduate programs and Ventresca leading the undergraduate programs. | ||||||
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| | ALUMNI NEWS & AWARDS | ||||||
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| 2026 Outstanding Industrial Engineers
The Edwardson School named five alumni as Outstanding Industrial Engineers. Congratulations to the 2026 Outstanding Industrial Engineer honorees. They are (as pictured, from left to right): Jim Durkin (BSIE '82): President, Founding Partner; The Martec Group Virginia Shepardson Serna (BSIE '94): Vice President, Engineering Operations; Honeywell Aerospace Andy Burke (BSIE '83): Founder and President; Burke Advisory Group, LTD. & Mayor; Village of Lake Barrington, IL Tony Orr (BSIE '17): Director of Supply Chain; PepsiCo Quentin Roach (BSIE '88): Chief Procurement Officer; Estee Lauder Companies
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| Barry Nelson: Distinguished Engineering Alumni The College of Engineering honored Barry Nelson (MSIE '81, PhD IE '83) as a Distinguished Engineering Alumni this spring. Now the Walter P. Murphy Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University, Nelson is widely regarded as the foremost academic in the simulation of stochastic systems, a career spanning four decades and rooted in the training he received at Purdue under the legendary Alan Pritsker. A fellow of both INFORMS and IISE, Nelson has earned the INFORMS Simulation Society's Lifetime Professional Achievement Award, the IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, and four Best Simulation Publication Awards. He has published three books and more than 200 papers, mentored 34 PhD students, and delivered keynotes on stages around the world. |  | |||||
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 | "Relentless": Major General Theresa C. Carter (BSIE '85) Began Building Her Resilience at Purdue Maj. Gen. Carter chose industrial engineering as a major because of her interest in human factors and ergonomics, but was assigned to civil engineering as she began her career in the U.S. Air Force. Carter relied on the resilience she began developing during her time at Purdue and carved out an outstanding 31-year career in the Air Force and beyond. | |||||
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| | FACULTY AWARDS & RECOGNITION | ||||||
 | Wenzhuo Wu Named Fulbright Scholar, Receives Trask Innovation Fund Professor Wenzhuo Wu has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to Poland for the 2026-27 academic year. Wu's work focuses on scalable manufacturing methods for tellurene, an emerging two-dimensional semiconductor material with applications in electronics, wearable sensors and advanced computing systems. In addition to being named a Fulbright Scholar, Wu has been awarded funding from the Trask Innovation Fund and the AI-Fusion award. | |||||
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| Vaneet Aggarwal and Collaborators Develop AI Identity Protection Vaneet Aggarwal, Reilly Professor of Industrial Engineering, along with collaborators Dipesh Tamboli and Vineet Punyamoorty, has developed a patent-pending system that shields users' personal identity during AI-powered photo editing. The system works by masking sensitive facial regions locally on a user's device before any image is sent to a cloud-based AI service, then seamlessly reintegrating those regions after editing. The research has been published in IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence. | .jpg) | |||||
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 | Stephan Biller Named to SME College of Fellows Stephan Biller, Harold T. Amrine Distinguished Professor in the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering, has been elected to the 2026 Class of Fellows of SME - one of only eight individuals nationwide to receive the distinction this year. The honor recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the manufacturing profession over at least two decades. In addition to this honor, Biller was recently elected at Vice Chair of Section 8 of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The election to the 2026 Class of Fellows of SME and Vice Chairmanship in Section 8 of the NAE adds to a remarkable run of recognition that includes consecutive Outstanding Educator Awards in 2023 and 2024 and Purdue's inaugural Faculty Mentor Award in 2025. | |||||
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| Center for AI & Robotics Excellence in Medicine (CARE) Continues Growth Juan Wachs, James H. and Barbara H. Greene Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering serves as the inaugural director of a new Indianapolis-based initiative helping position Indiana at the forefront of AI-powered medicine. The Center for AI and Robotic Excellence in Medicine (CARE) brings together Purdue University's Purdue University Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering, the Indiana University School of Medicine and other collaborating organizations to explore how AI and robotics can improve patient care and expand access to health services. |  | |||||
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 | Yu She Awarded NSF AI-ENGAGE Grant The Advancing Innovations for Empowering NextGen AGriculturE (AI-ENGAGE) initiative recently announced its six international research award recipients. Among the recipients is a team led by Assistant Professor Yu She, whose work involves tactile sensing robotic grasping and has applications in a wide variety of agricultural environments. | |||||
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| Hua Cai Named University Faculty Scholar Congratulations to Hua Cai, who was recently named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar. Cai conducts research at the intersection of sustainability, emerging technologies and data-driven systems. Her work focuses on the environmental impacts of technologies such as electric and autonomous vehicles, smart transportation systems and sustainable urban infrastructure, helping communities and industries make more informed decisions about the future of mobility and resilient cities. |  | |||||
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| | STUDENT HONORS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS | ||||||
 | IISE Chapter Named #1 Chapter in 2026 Inaugural Award Purdue University's IISE Student Chapter, advised by Barrett Caldwell, has claimed the top ranking in the first-ever ISE Department and IISE Student Chapter Performance Excellence Award at the 2026 IISE Annual Conference and Expo. | |||||
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The Purdue University Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering proudly recognizes its 2025-26 Graduate Education Award recipients, who were honored at the Purdue University College of Engineering award luncheon. They are, as pictured (l-r): Zhuoli Yin (Advisor: Professor Hua Cai) Magoon Award for Research Excellence Rishab Shah (Graduate Advisor: Aliya Scott) Outstanding Service Scholarship Don Kavitha Perera (Course instructor: Professor Wenzhuo Wu) Magoon Award for Excellence in Teaching Abigail Boerwinkle (Course instructor: Professor Barrett Caldwell) Magoon Award for Excellence in Teaching Dr. Barrett Caldwell Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award |
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 | Nuela Enebechi Honored as 3 Minute Thesis People's Choice Winner PhD student Nuela Enebechi, an advisee of Barrett Caldwell, recently presented her work at Purdue's 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition and was awarded as the People's Choice winner for her thesis titled "Motion Capture Engineering: Preserving Cultural Dance Heritage." Enebechi's work focuses on the study of human movement using advanced AI and emerging technologies to support more inclusive and equitable design. | |||||
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| PhD Student Ching-Yu Cheng Earns Best Poster Award at ASCE CI Summit-CRC Conference Congratulations to Ching-Yu Cheng for receiving the First Place Best Poster Award at the prestigious ASCE CI Summit-Construction Research Congress (CRC), a highly competitive honor within the construction engineering research community. Cheng, who is advised by Behzad Esmaeili, Dr. Rohan & Mrs. Merle Phillips Rising Star Associate Professor, Purdue University Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering, earned the honor for his poster titled "Multimodal Psychophysiological Analysis for Team Situation Awareness in Simulated Construction Environments." |
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 | Johnson Adetooto and Collaborators Honored with Best Poster Award Adetooto, advised by Behzad Esmaeili, recently won the Best Poster Award at the 2026 Associated Schools of Construction Conference for their joint research with collaborators from Purdue and Virginia Tech! The other co-authors of the poster titled "Neuro-and Psychophysiological Responses to Fear and Social Influence during Pre-Evacuation Decision-Making" are Esmaeili, Seonho Woo, and Young-Jun Son at Purdue IE, and Myounghoon Jeon at the Virginia Tech Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. | |||||
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| | GATEWAY LABS SPOTLIGHT | ||||||
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| Build @ Scale Lab Provides Hands-On Digital Learning Students in the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering are gaining firsthand experience in a true Industry 4.0 manufacturing environment where learning goes far beyond the classroom. Located in the Purdue University Gateway facility, the lab gives students direct access to advanced manufacturing systems, robotics, automated storage and retrieval systems, and real-time production data collection. As students interact with functioning equipment and integrated production processes, they are also generating valuable operational data that can be analyzed, optimized, and applied to real engineering challenges. The fully reconfigurable lab environment is designed to mirror modern smart factories, helping students connect manufacturing, analytics, automation, and systems thinking through immersive, hands-on experience. | ||||||
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| | THE SEMESTER IN PICTURES | ||||||
| Spring of '26 Check out the photos from all of the great events that took place this semester. Students, alumni, faculty, and family are all here in our online photo galleries. | 
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| | ADDITIONAL NEWS FROM SPRING '26 | ||||||
Check out additional news stories from the Spring of 2026.
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