From strong scores in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings to gearing up for Homecoming weekend on campus, Derek Schultz has everything you need to know in this week’s “Purdue News Now.”
Plus, check out five good stories below you may have missed.
Purdue University is again the highest-ranked public university in Indiana, and, for the second straight year, the state’s only public institution among the nation’s top 50, according to the 2025 Best Colleges ranking compiled by U.S. News & World Report. In rankings focusing primarily on undergraduate programs, released Tuesday (Sept. 24), Purdue placed No. 18 among public universities and tied for No. 46 overall among 434 national universities, while also extending its streak as one of the top 10 Most Innovative schools in the nation (No. 9) to seven consecutive years.
Media contact: Derek Schultz, dcschultz@purdue.edu
In a significant step to expand Purdue University’s global leadership in innovation and business, President Mung Chiang led a high-level delegation on a three-day visit to India last week, aimed at solidifying the university’s role as a pivotal partner in India’s rapidly growing semiconductor, finance and emerging technology sectors. This visit marks a new chapter in Purdue’s 125-year relationship with India, dating back to its first Indian students. Purdue’s leadership team held 12 high-level meetings in three cities with Indian government officials, top academic institutions and industry leaders. The discussions centered on collaborating in education, expanding joint R&D initiatives and exploring new opportunities in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, finance and aerospace.
Media contact: Wes Mills, wemills@purdue.edu
After a decade of preparation and two years of active experiments in space, a facility that Purdue University and NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland designed, built and tested has completed its test campaign on the International Space Station. The Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE), led by Purdue professor Issam Mudawar, gathered vital data for engineering innovations to help astronauts travel farther into space and conduct long-duration missions on the moon or Mars. The data will also support the design of future spacecraft propulsion, thermal management systems, in-space refueling and vapor compression heat pumps for planetary bases.
Media contact: Kayla Albert, wiles5@purdue.edu
Scientists from agricultural, biological and technological backgrounds are turning to AI as they collaborate to find ways for these algorithms and models to analyze datasets to better understand and predict a world impacted by climate change. In a recent paper published in Frontiers in Plant Science, Purdue University geomatics PhD candidate Claudia Aviles Toledo, working with her faculty advisors and co-authors Melba Crawford and Mitch Tuinstra, demonstrated the capability of a recurrent neural network — a model that teaches computers to process data using long short-term memory — to predict maize yield from several remote sensing technologies and environmental and genetic data.
Media contact: Devyn Ashlea Raver, draver@purdue.edu
Aniket Bera, an associate professor of computer science in Purdue University’s College of Science, explains that teaching robots how humans learn is key to them understanding and navigating the physical world. Helping robots understand the physical world improves their functionality and navigation, making them more practical in situations from wilderness rescue to food delivery. Bera’s research is working to improve the ability of robots to understand and predict how humans will move in a space, allowing robots to avoid collisions and make better decisions.
Media contact: Trevor Peters, peter237@purdue.edu
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About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.