Arvind Raman named new John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering at Purdue University
After an exhaustive search, Purdue University has chosen Arvind Raman as the new John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering. He has been with the school for many years, most recently as the executive associate dean of engineering.
After many years as a Purdue University administrator, faculty member, and alumnus, Arvind Raman has been named the new John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering.
Currently, Raman is the executive associate dean of engineering at Purdue, as well as the Robert V. Adams Professor in Mechanical Engineering. He has a long and impressive record of academic experience and leadership that he is bringing to his new position. His new position was announced recently by Patrick Wolfe, who serves as Purdue’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity.
Wolfe’s announcement was quoted in an article posted on Purdue’s website, where he talked about Raman’s selection, saying, “Professor Raman is passionate about the role of engineering in creating innovative solutions for people and society. We’re confident that as our next engineering dean, he will lead the college to new levels of excellence and impact.”
Raman will succeed Mark Lundstrom, the Dan and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, starting the first of April. Lundstrom has served as the interim dean of the college since last July. He will continue to lead the semiconductors activities on Purdue’s campus after Raman takes over. Lundstrom will also represent Purdue as the chief semiconductor officer and senior advisor to the president.
Julie Swann, who is the A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor and department head of the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University was a finalist with Raman. They were selected by Purdue’s search advisory committee, for whom they performed presentations and held Q&A sessions on their vision of the University back in January.
There were many qualified applicants to the position, and the search committee interviewed ten semifinalists back in December. Some of the semifinalists were heads of large departments in AAU Universities, senior associate deans of top engineering colleges, and a sitting provost.
Both the undergraduate and graduate programs at Purdue are in the top ten and top five in the country, respectively. Around a third of the school’s graduates are enrolled in the engineering college.
Raman had served as the executive associate dean since December of 2019. In that time, he has worked on recruiting diverse and skilled faculty talent, improving the success of staff and faculty programs and development, supporting the overall quality of academic programs, and elevating the prestige of Purdue engineering as a whole. He has also overseen the offices of graduate and undergraduate education. Before he took that position, he was the inaugural associate dean for global engineering programs. Raman was in that position for three years wherein he helped increase the number of engineering students taking international experiences twofold. Through that, he facilitated Purdue establishing new partnerships in Asia, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.
Raman spoke about the other transitions happening around the school of engineering, saying, “The College of Engineering, in partnership with our faculty, students, staff, alumni and industry partners, is poised for excellence at scale and the promise to pursue and lead truly game-changing initiatives that will impact the state, nation and world. It is truly an honor to be selected to lead the nation’s largest top-ranked college of engineering at a university with a tremendous legacy and a record of innovation and impact on a global scale.”
From 2008 to 2012 Raman was a Purdue University Faculty Scholar. He was also named the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2012.
Raman has several research interests, including roll to roll flexible electronics manufacturing, human biomechanics, and nonlinear dynamics and its applications to atomic force microscopy. He is the co-founder of the Shah Family Global Innovation Lab, which has over 30 faculty-led technology development and scale up projects under its belt for sustainable development with several top nongovernmental organizations.
He is also a previous director of the USAID-funded Long-term Assistance and Services for Research (or LASER), Partners for University-Led Solutions Engine (or PULSE) consortium where he led the $70 million program for five years. LASER was partnered with the University of Notre Dame, Makerere University, Indiana University, and Catholic Relief Services. LASER did research to drive solutions to field sourced development challenges in United States Agency for International Development (or USAID) partner countries.
Raman is also an ASME Gustus Larson Memorial Award recipient, a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Keeley fellow at Oxford, an awardee of the College of Engineering outstanding young investigator, and a CAREER awardee from the National Science Foundation. Raman’s atomic force microscopy simulation tools, through the help of the Purdue led nanoHUB, are used by thousands of researchers all over the world.
He earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, his master’s degree in the same subject from Purdue University, and his bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.
Purdue’s College of Engineering, under Dean Chiang’s leadership, has seen record levels of undergraduate admissions, graduation rate, yield rate, and selectivity. The school has also seen a large increase in underrepresented minorities and women. The college’s online attendance has increased more than four times, and its ranking rose to within the top three in the country. Recently, new degrees have been launched, and the professional master’s degree program’s enrollment has increased four fold as well. In terms of research, awards have risen over 70%.
The Search Advisory Committee for the position was co-chaired by Dan DeLaurentis, vice president for research institutes and centers in Discovery Park District at Purdue and professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and Shasha Boltasseva, the Ron and Dotty Garven Tonjes Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Other members of the search committee included Christine Babick, director of communications for the College of Engineering, Morgan Broberg, graduate student of civil engineering, Chi Hwan Lee, the Leslie A. Geddes Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Bill Oakes, the 150th Anniversary Professor of Engineering Education, Sangtae Kim, Distinguished Professor and the Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Head of Chemical Engineering, Panagiota Karava, the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering, Luciano Castillo, the Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems in Mechanical Engineering, and Barrett Caldwell, professor of industrial engineering.
Purdue University is one of the top public research institutions in the nation. It has ranked as one of the ten Most Innovative Universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report every year for the past five years. Purdue is committed to hands-on, real-world, and online learning, with the goal of being able to offer an education to all. Purdue has chosen to freeze its tuition and many of its fees at 2012-13 levels, allowing for a more affordable than ever college experience.
More information about Purdue University can be found at the school’s website.