Mung Chiang elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Purdue University President and Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor Mung Chiang on Wednesday (April 24) was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  

The Academy is one of the country’s oldest learned societies. Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together, as expressed in the charter, “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Individuals elected to the academy span the globe as world leaders in the arts and sciences, business, philanthropy, and public affairs.

Chiang is elected to the Class of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in the Area of Engineering and Technology. His research in communication networks and edge computing received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award (2013) as well as the IEEE Tomiyasu Award (2012), IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award (2022) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2014). He was elected to the National Academy of Inventors (2020) and Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2020). 

Since the Academy’s founding in 1780 by America’s Founding Fathers, distinguished members include John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and over 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. Chiang will be honored Sept. 21 alongside other 250 members of the 2024 cohort at a formal induction ceremony, which will take place at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

There are 10 other Purdue-affiliated members currently in the American Academy of Arts and Science, including nine in Mathematical and Physical Sciences and one in Leadership and Policy: 

• Laura J. Pyrak-Nolte, Distinguished professor of physics and astronomy (2022)
• Eugene H. Spafford, Professor of computer science and executive director emeritus of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance (CERIAS) (2020)
• Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., President emeritus (2019)
• Kathleen C. Howell, Hsu Lo Distinguished Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2017)
• Enrique Iglesia, Michel Boudart Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering (2015)
• Rakesh Agrawal, Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering (2013)
• Leah H. Jamieson, Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (2011)
• R. Graham Cooks, Henry B. Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry (2010)
• Freydoon Shahidi, Distinguished professor of mathematics (2010)
• Arden L. Bement, David A. Ross Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering (2004)