Purdue president, 3 alumni elected to National Academy of Engineering

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University President and the Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor Mung Chiang has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering, one of the most prestigious honors in engineering.

A preeminent engineering researcher, educator and innovator, Chiang was elected to the NAE “for contributions to networks and edge computing and leadership in U.S. higher education,” in the primary section of Electronics, Communication and Information Systems and the secondary section of Special Fields and Interdisciplinary. Chiang’s election brings the number of current Purdue faculty in the National Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering to 30. Chiang is the second sitting president of a university in the state to be elected to the National Academies, after University of Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh in 1984.

Chiang was previously elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class of Mathematical and Physical Sciences 2024), the National Academy of Inventors (2020) and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2020).

NAE members are among the world’s most accomplished engineers from business, academia and government. NAE membership honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education, including significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

Three Purdue alumni also will be inducted as members of the 2026 class: Dorothy Denning (PhD computer science ’75 and former faculty in computer science at Purdue), Fred Mannering (MS civil engineering ’79 and former department head of civil engineering at Purdue) and Milo Riverso (MS civil engineering ’82, PhD civil engineering ’84). Also in the 2026 class is Moungi Bawendi, a 2023 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry who attended West Lafayette High School and took Purdue courses during that time. Bawendi spoke about his pioneering work in April 2024 as part of Purdue’s Presidential Lecture Series.

Read the NAE announcement here.

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.