Neera Jain receives Outstanding Young Investigator Award

Neera Jain, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has received the 2023 Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD).
Neera Jain (center) was recognized by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division of ASME with their Outstanding Young Investigator Award. (Photo courtesy ASME)

This award is given every other year, recognizing outstanding researchers less than 40 years old. Jain received the award at the ASME's Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference (MECC) in Lake Tahoe, Nevada in October 2023. She was cited for "outstanding contributions in the control of transient thermal systems using the second law of thermodynamics in a feedback optimization framework, and the formulation of control co-design and human-autonomy teaming design techniques."

Neera Jain is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and a faculty member in the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories at Purdue University. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009 and 2013, respectively, and earned her S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. She has held visiting research positions at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) (Aerospace Systems Directorate) and AFRL at Kirtland AFB (Space Vehicles Directorate). Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, as well as private industry, disseminated in over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and translated to industry in multiple patents. She is the recipient of the 2022 NSF CAREER Award, a National Research Council (NRC) Research Associateship Award and was invited to participate in the 2022 EU-US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. At Purdue, her teaching and graduate mentorship were recognized by College of Engineering Faculty Excellence Awards in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Dr. Jain and her research have been featured in NPR and Axios, and as a contributor for Forbes.com, she has written on the topic of human interaction with automation and its importance in society.