Top 5 stories from Purdue University
‘Purdue News Now’
Purdue remains the No. 1 public university in Indiana, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, and builds on its space legacy with two exciting announcements. Trevor Peters has all the details in this week’s edition of “Purdue News Now.”
Plus, check out five good stories below you may have missed.
Purdue ranked No. 1 public university in Indiana; 20 undergraduate programs among top 20 in U.S.
Purdue University remains the highest-ranked public university in Indiana and, for the third straight year, places as the state’s only public institution among the nation’s top 50, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Colleges rankings. In the annual ranking focusing primarily on undergraduate programs, Purdue tied at No. 46 among more than 400 universities, the same as last year, according to the results released Tuesday (Sept. 23). Purdue rose to sixth overall for co-op and internship opportunities — its highest level ever in this key career-path category and continuing a seven-year run as a top three university among publics. Purdue also ranked as the No. 26 best college for veterans.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
All-Boilermaker team to crew Virgin Galactic suborbital mission Purdue 1
Building on its tremendous space legacy, Purdue University is pursuing a groundbreaking opportunity — research and learning aboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceflight with an all-Boilermaker crew. The flight, dubbed Purdue 1, is expected to lift off in 2027. Purdue researchers and students plan to personally conduct and oversee experiments in microgravity, setting a precedent for academic access to space. The flight will provide an emphasis on Purdue teaching and research with onboard experiments about how fluids behave in zero gravity — a research area that is critical to advancing spaceflight design, fuel management and future long-duration space missions.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
New NASA astronaut candidates become Purdue’s 29th and 30th members of Cradle of Astronauts
Two Purdue University alumni are part of NASA’s 2025 class of astronaut candidates. The alumni, Adam Fuhrmann and Yuri Kubo, will immediately join the Cradle of Astronauts at Purdue, bringing the total number of its members to 30. Fuhrmann, currently in the U.S. Air Force, earned his master’s in systems engineering from Purdue in 2022. Fuhrmann served as the director of operations for an Air Force flight test unit when he was selected as an astronaut candidate. Kubo earned two degrees from Purdue — a bachelor’s in electrical engineering in 2008 and a master’s in electrical and computer engineering in 2015. Purdue’s College of Engineering also named him a 2024 recipient of its 38 by 38 award. At the time of his selection as an astronaut candidate, Kubo was a senior vice president at Electric Hydrogen.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
AP video — Why hurricanes grow faster in ocean hot spots
Dan Chavas is a professor of atmospheric science in Purdue University’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. In this video, he explains why hurricanes expand fastest over hot spots on the ocean’s surface. In a recent study conducted by Chavas and his colleagues, it was discovered that hurricanes grow much faster when traveling over locally warm waters, where a portion of the ocean’s surface is warmer than the rest of the ocean. Before this work, scientists knew that some hurricanes expanded substantially during their lifetimes while others stayed compact, but they didn’t understand why. Storm size dramatically affects the amount of damage a hurricane causes. This discovery will help improve predictions and models of hurricane size, impacts and property risk.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
Purdue celebrates opening of Spatial Computing Hub
Purdue University is embracing the future of immersive technology and preparing students to be the next generation of innovators by opening a Spatial Computing Hub utilizing Apple Vision Pro technology. On Monday (Sept. 22) Purdue President Mung Chiang, joined by university leaders, Apple representatives and other members of the campus community, marked the opening of the cutting-edge facility that will bolster Purdue’s constant drive toward harnessing emerging technologies. Spatial computing blends the physical and digital worlds by using augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and 3D mapping to allow people and machines to interact with space in more immersive ways. The hub utilizes Apple Vision Pro technology to enable collaborative research, innovative educational programs and industry engagement.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
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About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.
