National Academy of Inventors names 3 Purdue faculty as 2025 fellows

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Three Purdue University faculty members, representing the College of Engineering, the Mitch Daniels School of Business and the College of Science, have been named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the organization announced Thursday (Dec. 11).

Stephan Biller, the Harold T. Amrine Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Management in the Daniels School of Business; Luna Lu, the Indiana ACPA Professor in Concrete Paving and Materials Science and vice president of the Office of Industry Partnerships at Purdue; and David Nolte, the Edward M. Purcell Distinguished Professor of Physics & Astronomy, will be inducted during NAI’s 15th annual meeting in June 2026 in Los Angeles.

Their selection brings the number of Purdue faculty ever inducted as NAI fellows to 26, including Purdue President Mung Chiang.

The NAI Fellows Program celebrates academic inventors whose work spans multiple disciplines and exemplifies their collaboration, dedication and innovation to transform research into real-world commercial technologies that contribute to the betterment of society. The 2025 cohort includes 16 international fellows and 169 U.S. fellows representing 127 universities, government agencies and research institutions.

Election as an NAI fellow is the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors.

Biller holds a joint appointment in the College of Engineering and the Mitch Daniels School of Business, a reflection of both his and Purdue’s commitment to preparing students not only in technical innovation but also in how to market and commercialize new ideas. His vision, innovation and dedication to educating the next generation of students drew the attention of the academy, which seeks to advance technology and foster innovations for the benefit of society.

Biller is widely recognized for his expertise in smart manufacturing, digital twins, Industry 4.0 and supply chain management. His research integrates AI and the Internet of Things with Lean Six Sigma manufacturing processes to modernize and accelerate manufacturing enterprises, driving a competitive and sustainable future for U.S. manufacturing.

His innovations not only build upon his research prowess at Purdue but also his extensive experience in manufacturing-focused nonprofit organizations and the private sector. He currently serves as director of the Dauch Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises and is co-chair and founder of eXcellence in Manufacturing and Operations, Purdue’s national initiative to effect a contemporary renaissance in manufacturing. He has previously served in leadership roles at IBM, Advanced Manufacturing International, General Electric and General Motors.

He holds 11 patents and has co-authored more than 100 refereed scholarly publications. A Six Sigma Master Black Belt, he is an IEEE fellow and member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a two-time recipient of Purdue’s Outstanding Educator Award and received the university’s inaugural Faculty Mentor Award and gave the Distinguished Faculty Mentor Lecture this year.

Lu is an accomplished academic leader, researcher and entrepreneur dedicated to academic excellence and impact. Throughout her career, she has built strategic alliances with leading corporations and institutions, helping to position Purdue as a global leader in fields such as semiconductors, microelectronics and intelligent infrastructure.

Lu’s research is focused on the discovery and engineering of functional nanomaterials and devices to enable smart infrastructure systems. She has authored two books, six book chapters and more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, and she holds 10 published and provisional patents. Lu is also the founder and CEO of Wavelogix, a Purdue-rooted startup that developed the REBEL concrete strength sensing system. The sensors are embedded into fresh concrete and can measure the concrete’s strength levels in real time, conveying when highway pavement is strong enough for traffic.

Her research has garnered several prestigious awards and honors, including the 2014 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2019 Purdue Faculty Scholar award, the 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers Gamechanger recognition, the 2022 ASCE Alfred Noble Prize, the 2022 Royal Society of Arts Fellowship, TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023, the 2024 Edison Award (Gold) and a 2024 R&D 100 finalist.

Nolte is an internationally recognized researcher in holography and interferometry, known for pioneering the BioCD for the companion-animal veterinary marketplace, as well as dynamic contrast optical coherence tomography as a new microscopy that uses living motion inside cells as its image contrast.

He has authored more than 200 journal papers and 15 book chapters or encyclopedia articles, and he is a popular book author with three trade books explaining in simple terms the physics behind modern technology and the history of science. His blog (galileo-unbound.blog) on science topics attracts over 100,000 views per year. He has secured 25 U.S. patents in interferometric optics and biophotonics and was a technical founder of two Purdue-based startup companies focused on biological applications of interferometric detectors.

Nolte is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Optica society for optical research. He was a research fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2005, he received Purdue’s Herbert Newby McCoy Award.

All three researchers have worked with the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization to protect the cutting-edge research and intellectual property they developed and hope to advance to the global marketplace. OTC experts vet the intellectual property, apply for IP protection if needed, and find commercial partners that license it and bring it to market.

In June, Purdue again achieved a top five ranking among leading research institutions in NAI’s Top 100 U.S. Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents. Based on 2024 data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Purdue ranked fourth in the U.S. and seventh internationally, with 213 granted U.S. utility patents last year, surpassing Stanford, Harvard and California Institute of Technology.

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.