Top 5 stories from Purdue University
‘Purdue News Now’
Purdue is launching a musculoskeletal center in Indianapolis and grabs the top spot on a “Best Managed Colleges” list. Derek Schultz has these stories and more in this week’s edition of “Purdue News Now.”
Plus, check out five good stories below you may have missed.
Purdue tops list of the world’s 25 best managed universities
Purdue University topped a 2025 list of the 25 best managed universities globally for its effort in demonstrating sustained excellence the past decade in student and faculty satisfaction, financial stability, teaching and research quality, and trust in graduate outcomes. In the report by Canadian global management consulting firm Organizational Excellence Specialists titled “The Top 25 Best Managed Colleges and Universities,” Purdue is one of just three U.S. universities and six in North America recognized for setting benchmarks for effective leadership, management and innovative approaches, providing lessons for countries striving to improve the performance of higher education institutions.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
Purdue continues as No. 32 among U.S. research universities, only Indiana university in global top 100 in 2026 Times Higher Education rankings
Purdue University, driven by gains in research excellence and industry engagement, maintained its hold as Indiana’s top-ranked research university, while coming in at No. 32 among U.S. research institutions in the 2026 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. At No. 127 globally just four years ago, Purdue is now ranked 85th globally and is the only university in Indiana in the top 100 globally, based on Times Higher Education rankings released Thursday (Oct. 9). The state’s other two major research institutions, the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University, globally were ranked 194th and 198th, respectively.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
Purdue to launch musculoskeletal center in Indianapolis
Eager to grow in Indianapolis, Purdue University’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering has announced a plan to launch the Purdue Center for Musculoskeletal Engineering in the capital city. Musculoskeletal diseases, such as osteoarthritis or osteoporosis, affect scores of Americans and place a significant burden on health, quality of life and the health care system as a whole. A major goal of the center is to use engineering approaches to help prevent diseases harmful to the musculoskeletal system and treat them more efficiently when they occur.
Media contact: Derek Schultz, dcschultz@purdue.edu
Cutting-edge imaging, AI research seeks out minuscule defects in chips
A defect in a semiconductor chip may be smaller than a human hair but can create big problems in your everyday life, from crippling your car’s steering to making your laptop more susceptible to hackers. Nikhilesh Chawla, a Purdue University engineer, is working with university colleagues and scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory on high-resolution imaging to better spot defects and speed up the existing inspection process during chip manufacturing. The research looks at several aspects of defects, including how they form and if any particular phase of semiconductor packaging is more susceptible to defects during the manufacturing process.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
Running like the wind: Studying asthma in horses helps lead human health insights
Ask a person to picture someone with asthma, and despite famous asthmatic athletes including David Beckham and Emmitt Smith, they’ll likely picture a knobby-kneed kid clutching an inhaler on a park bench. They certainly won’t picture a horse — and yet, a surprising number of horses struggle with asthma. Now, veterinarians are studying the condition to help horses and humans alike. Laurent Couëtil, an equine veterinarian and horse respiratory expert at Purdue University, studies asthma in horses, which has relevance for advances in human health. Asthma afflicts nearly 1 in every 12 people in America, including 5 million children. It is one of the most common and costly human diseases in the U.S. As it turns out, asthma in horses is much easier to study, leading to insights that may guide the way to therapies and treatments to help both humans and horses breathe easier.
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.
