Mung Chiang has been president of Purdue University for nearly a year now. During that time, the electrical engineer and former dean of Purdue’s college of engineering has built on the work of his predecessor, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, to make Purdue one of the most tech-focused schools in America. With a main campus in West Lafayette, Indiana and a handful more across the state, Purdue has more STEM students than any other large university (while also, by the way, having the number-one basketball team in the nation at the time of this writing).
At Fast Company, we have covered Purdue’s growing influence in the tech world for years and have honored it for innovation on multiple occasions. Last year we ranked the school number 16 on our list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies, primarily for its program to train semiconductor engineers, which our burgeoning domestic industry sorely needs to keep up with soaring demand and ferocious global competition. Purdue has also been a Fast Company Brands That Matter honoree for three years running.
We’ve just launched a new recognition program, Ignition Schools, to honor colleges and universities for their work in fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development. The program is a partnership with our sister publication, Inc, and the deadline to apply is this Friday, December 22.
All of which is to say: It seemed like a good moment to check in with Chiang on Purdue’s trailblazing work in the “hard tech corridor”, a 65-mile stretch of the so-called silicon heartland that runs between West Lafayette and Indianapolis, where the school will launch a new campus this summer. Fittingly, Chiang was on the way to Indianapolis during our 20-minute conversation, which ranged from how academia can best work with business to how the recognition Purdue has received from Fast Company has helped it fulfill its mission.
Purdue focuses on the relationship between academic research, business innovation, and the role a university can play in lifting up its community and economy. One year into your job overseeing that mission, how’s it going?
Purdue takes great pride in excellence at scale, in everything we choose to do, in particular in the co-generation of jobs, workforce, and innovation. We want all three, and we’re proud to be the heart of the silicon heartland, with the resurgence of not just microelectronics, but all types of advanced manufacturing jobs back to America’s heartland. Our hard tech corridor will be a key anchor in that.
Without jobs, the workforce won’t stay. But without workforce, the jobs won’t come. And without innovation, we would not be able to rewrite the economic boundary conditions. That goes for both attracting large companies to work with us across education and research but also economic development, as well as encouraging smaller companies, including our own startup companies.
When you look out at the competitive landscape—other STEM-focused universities, both public and private—do you see increased emphasis on the relationship between academic research and the businesses that research might generate?
Yes. There are two elements to this. The first is on entrepreneurship and supporting inventors and entrepreneurs. Purdue is doing a particularly good job at this, I could say, but we are not alone in that.
Then there’s another element, and that is economic development, prosperity, and job creation. Not that many universities would consider that element as an essential mission for the institutions. Because there are different types of institutions, I’m not saying that they should, at all. I’m just saying that many don’t.
But for Purdue as a public land grant institution—and we are the largest STEM enrollment among the top 50 universities in America—we do see this as a core mission. Part of who we are is to help the state of Indiana, and to help the hard tech corridor in particular, to grow. To do that well, you do need scale. We have 106,000 students in the system of 53,000 on our main campus alone, and now we’re opening our first urban campus in downtown Indianapolis. We are proud of the excellence, we’re proud of the scale. When it comes to job creation and economic growth for the state and the neighborhood and the region of the country, Purdue stands out in particular.
Technology has always been important, of course, but it does feel like we are living in a particularly accelerated moment. AI is the obvious example, but there are others. Do you see this creating more of a gap between schools that are really focused on STEM and schools that have more of a traditional, broad-based, humanities oriented educational offering?
Well, first of all, AI and related technologies, all of which needs to happen on some kind of silicon chips, are indeed transforming our way of life and many different industry sectors, including agriculture, though digital ag, including manufacturing, advanced manufacturing through Industry 4.0, things that you can touch. And that’s why Purdue created an Institute of Physical AI, IPAI [pronounced eye-pie] earlier this year, whereby you have the bytes of AI touching the atoms of what we make—what we grow, what we move. So that transformation is happening and will continue to deepen and broaden, not just in how we write essays, but in how we grow food, how we make things, and how we move people.
As to differentiation across different universities, I cannot speak for other institutions. A great country and society like ours needs different types of institutions. There is no right or wrong. For Purdue, we focus on what we can do best and where we have the strength.
Are you seeing more schools that are seeking leadership with highly technical backgrounds like yours?
Well, that’s a timely topic, isn’t it? [laughs] University leadership.
I didn’t even [laughs]—you know what? I wasn’t even referring to that.
Well it’s certainly [timely] for very different sets of reasons. But no, I have not tracked that, so I really don’t know. But I don’t exactly see that that’s essential per se. Great leaders can put together great teams, and it’s the strength of the team that’s going to be more important than any particular person’s own professional background. So I would be surprised if that is the case, but I don’t have the data.
Purdue has partnerships with the semiconductor industry and with other tech companies. How does these partnerships help universities, and how do they help the partner companies?
Whether it’s the pharmaceutical industry, or transportation, or digital agriculture, or microelectronic industry, or aerospace industry, Purdue has been doing very well [in forging these alliances]. We recognize the benefits this can bring to our students in their learning, including internships and co-op experience, and what this means to research innovation, collaboration with our professors and, of course, economic development and that co-creation of jobs, workforce and innovation.
And that’s why, starting with my predecessor Mitch Daniels, Purdue has been very successful in recruiting these companies. And sometimes they literally open their site within walking distance of student dorms and classroom facilities. We’ll open a whole new part of our campus called the Discovery Park District [with companies we’re already working with] and many more, including, for example, Saab. They are making the fuselage for the T-7A trainer jet for the US Air Force, and that’s right next to the Purdue campus. And Rolls-Royce, looking at hypersonics, and many more…These are all reflections of the benefits of having this vibrant collaboration between the private sector and a university like ours.
I’m going to ask you to put your marketing hat on. It’s clear that Purdue value the kind of ranking that Fast Company and other publications do. How does you use these accolades? Is it primarily for attracting students? Recruiting faculty? Seeking research dollars? What is the utility of this kind of recognition?
Each individual ranking will always be partial, but the metrics that they measure and reflect can be very helpful. And if you look across the board, then you have to say the collection of all these rankings is a reflection of the results of our faculty and students and staff. And by the way, folks out there—they do pay attention. We recently welcomed IMEC, the headquarters of European semiconductor innovation in Belgium, to open their R&D center on the Purdue campus. This was last Friday. And the Flemish minister came along with the IMEC CEO to do the ribbon cut. And I joked at the luncheon, but it’s true, that Purdue is the only university today in America with both a top four Final Four basketball team and a Final Four engineering college, according to the US News graduate ranking. So that’s not bad—to be Final Four in both basketball and in engineering. As for the Fast Company Most innovative Companies and the Brands That Matter, we’re very proud that Purdue is often the only university on those lists. We take great pride in that.
Mung Chiang has been president of Purdue University for nearly a year now. During that time, the electrical engineer and former dean of Purdue’s college of engineering has built on the work of his predecessor, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, to make Purdue one of the most tech-focused schools in America. With a main campus in West Lafayette, Indiana and a handful more across the state, Purdue has more STEM students than any other large university (while also, by the way, having the number-one basketball team in the nation at the time of this writing).
At Fast Company, we have covered Purdue’s growing influence in the tech world for years and have honored it for innovation on multiple occasions. Last year we ranked the school number 16 on our list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies, primarily for its program to train semiconductor engineers, which our burgeoning domestic industry sorely needs to keep up with soaring demand and ferocious global competition. Purdue has also been a Fast Company Brands That Matter honoree for three years running.
We’ve just launched a new recognition program, Ignition Schools, to honor colleges and universities for their work in fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development. The program is a partnership with our sister publication, Inc, and the deadline to apply is this Friday, December 22.
All of which is to say: It seemed like a good moment to check in with Chiang on Purdue’s trailblazing work in the “hard tech corridor”, a 65-mile stretch of the so-called silicon heartland that runs between West Lafayette and Indianapolis, where the school will launch a new campus this summer. Fittingly, Chiang was on the way to Indianapolis during our 20-minute conversation, which ranged from how academia can best work with business to how the recognition Purdue has received from Fast Company has helped it fulfill its mission.
Purdue focuses on the relationship between academic research, business innovation, and the role a university can play in lifting up its community and economy. One year into your job overseeing that mission, how’s it going?
Purdue takes great pride in excellence at scale, in everything we choose to do, in particular in the co-generation of jobs, workforce, and innovation. We want all three, and we’re proud to be the heart of the silicon heartland, with the resurgence of not just microelectronics, but all types of advanced manufacturing jobs back to America’s heartland. Our hard tech corridor will be a key anchor in that.
Without jobs, the workforce won’t stay. But without workforce, the jobs won’t come. And without innovation, we would not be able to rewrite the economic boundary conditions. That goes for both attracting large companies to work with us across education and research but also economic development, as well as encouraging smaller companies, including our own startup companies.
When you look out at the competitive landscape—other STEM-focused universities, both public and private—do you see increased emphasis on the relationship between academic research and the businesses that research might generate?
Yes. There are two elements to this. The first is on entrepreneurship and supporting inventors and entrepreneurs. Purdue is doing a particularly good job at this, I could say, but we are not alone in that.
Then there’s another element, and that is economic development, prosperity, and job creation. Not that many universities would consider that element as an essential mission for the institutions. Because there are different types of institutions, I’m not saying that they should, at all. I’m just saying that many don’t.
But for Purdue as a public land grant institution—and we are the largest STEM enrollment among the top 50 universities in America—we do see this as a core mission. Part of who we are is to help the state of Indiana, and to help the hard tech corridor in particular, to grow. To do that well, you do need scale. We have 106,000 students in the system of 53,000 on our main campus alone, and now we’re opening our first urban campus in downtown Indianapolis. We are proud of the excellence, we’re proud of the scale. When it comes to job creation and economic growth for the state and the neighborhood and the region of the country, Purdue stands out in particular.
Technology has always been important, of course, but it does feel like we are living in a particularly accelerated moment. AI is the obvious example, but there are others. Do you see this creating more of a gap between schools that are really focused on STEM and schools that have more of a traditional, broad-based, humanities oriented educational offering?
Well, first of all, AI and related technologies, all of which needs to happen on some kind of silicon chips, are indeed transforming our way of life and many different industry sectors, including agriculture, though digital ag, including manufacturing, advanced manufacturing through Industry 4.0, things that you can touch. And that’s why Purdue created an Institute of Physical AI, IPAI [pronounced eye-pie] earlier this year, whereby you have the bytes of AI touching the atoms of what we make—what we grow, what we move. So that transformation is happening and will continue to deepen and broaden, not just in how we write essays, but in how we grow food, how we make things, and how we move people.
As to differentiation across different universities, I cannot speak for other institutions. A great country and society like ours needs different types of institutions. There is no right or wrong. For Purdue, we focus on what we can do best and where we have the strength.
Are you seeing more schools that are seeking leadership with highly technical backgrounds like yours?
Well, that’s a timely topic, isn’t it? [laughs] University leadership.
I didn’t even [laughs]—you know what? I wasn’t even referring to that.
Well it’s certainly [timely] for very different sets of reasons. But no, I have not tracked that, so I really don’t know. But I don’t exactly see that that’s essential per se. Great leaders can put together great teams, and it’s the strength of the team that’s going to be more important than any particular person’s own professional background. So I would be surprised if that is the case, but I don’t have the data.
Purdue has partnerships with the semiconductor industry and with other tech companies. How does these partnerships help universities, and how do they help the partner companies?
Whether it’s the pharmaceutical industry, or transportation, or digital agriculture, or microelectronic industry, or aerospace industry, Purdue has been doing very well [in forging these alliances]. We recognize the benefits this can bring to our students in their learning, including internships and co-op experience, and what this means to research innovation, collaboration with our professors and, of course, economic development and that co-creation of jobs, workforce and innovation.
And that’s why, starting with my predecessor Mitch Daniels, Purdue has been very successful in recruiting these companies. And sometimes they literally open their site within walking distance of student dorms and classroom facilities. We’ll open a whole new part of our campus called the Discovery Park District [with companies we’re already working with] and many more, including, for example, Saab. They are making the fuselage for the T-7A trainer jet for the US Air Force, and that’s right next to the Purdue campus. And Rolls-Royce, looking at hypersonics, and many more…These are all reflections of the benefits of having this vibrant collaboration between the private sector and a university like ours.
I’m going to ask you to put your marketing hat on. It’s clear that Purdue value the kind of ranking that Fast Company and other publications do. How does you use these accolades? Is it primarily for attracting students? Recruiting faculty? Seeking research dollars? What is the utility of this kind of recognition?
Each individual ranking will always be partial, but the metrics that they measure and reflect can be very helpful. And if you look across the board, then you have to say the collection of all these rankings is a reflection of the results of our faculty and students and staff. And by the way, folks out there—they do pay attention. We recently welcomed IMEC, the headquarters of European semiconductor innovation in Belgium, to open their R&D center on the Purdue campus. This was last Friday. And the Flemish minister came along with the IMEC CEO to do the ribbon cut. And I joked at the luncheon, but it’s true, that Purdue is the only university today in America with both a top four Final Four basketball team and a Final Four engineering college, according to the US News graduate ranking. So that’s not bad—to be Final Four in both basketball and in engineering. As for the Fast Company Most innovative Companies and the Brands That Matter, we’re very proud that Purdue is often the only university on those lists. We take great pride in that.