Boilermaker Engineering Engenuity Podcast

This episode features Vladimir Shalaev on the occasion of his recent election to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. Years ago, Shalaev studied with a mentor who stressed the importance of trying to do something really big, something based on fundamental science that could potentially lead to truly disruptive innovations. Shalaev specializes in metamaterials, materials that are designed and engineered with properties that cannot be otherwise obtained from materials in nature. He is working on quantum photonics, aiming to engineer light, mastering its properties to create virtually perfect carriers of information that are much faster and have way more bandwidth than electronics. He talks about a not-too-distant future where quantum computing, classical computing, and AI come together to tackle the biggest societal problems, things that will change our lives — vital for the prosperity of Indiana, the country writ big, and the world with which we compete.

Today we’re speaking with Professor Yuehwern Yih, newly elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Professor Yih‘s accomplishments have morphed over her career from entomology, to manufacturing, to healthcare, to humanitarian work, to broadly applicable advances in supply chain resilience. In each instance she started afresh, not knowing what she didn’t know, and thinking of ways to help. That flexibility to pivot from one domain and challenge to another — so vital in our fast-changing, technology-driven world — is precisely what she embeds in her real-time decision-making solutions: the ability to adapt as circumstances dictate (interestingly, the same skills she brings to her passion of ballroom dancing). In her work, this has led to truly consequential successes — like getting lifesaving goods over the last mile of the humanitarian supply chain during natural disasters and conflicts in places like Uganda, Ukraine and South Sudan.

Classroom education and lab research are core, but student organizations outside the lecture halls and labs play an equally vital role in student life, helping students develop top-notch technical skills and providing opportunities for innovation and leadership. Two Purdue student organizations celebrated recent milestones: the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Purdue Grand Prix. NSBE marked its 50th anniversary in 2025; our “Mother Chapter” has now grown to more than 220 chapters at U.S. colleges and universities. The Purdue Grand Prix, often called “The Greatest Spectacle in College Racing,” is an annual go-kart race held at the Purdue racetrack. It marked its 60th anniversary in 2017, and more recently the 68th running of the race — the first since original 1909 bricks from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway were laid at the Purdue racetrack start/finish line. In this podcast, the four students talk about how participating in these organizations has made them better engineers and built community and teamwork.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is pretty much the Super Bowl for high-tech. In addition to being a prime stage for the race to dominance of various technologies, this year’s CES featured an actual race: an autonomous racecar competition on the 1.5 mile track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The event was sponsored by the Indy Autonomous Challenge, where drivers are replaced by sensors, algorithms, and machine learning. The Purdue AI Racing Team took part, speeding around the oval and its 20° banked turns at a team record of 159 mph, as its innovations in control, perception, and decision-making let it hit that speed without compromising safety and performance. The race series gathers global university teams to further the commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles, advanced driver-assistance systems, and AI, machine learning, and autonomy in general. In this podcast, Purdue AI Racing Team members Dan Williams, Ashley Shaffer, Yuchen Song talk about their day at the track.

The United States not only needs to increase the production of the microelectronics at the heart of virtually everything — it must also plug a huge gap in its microelectronics workforce. By 2029, the U.S. is expected to be short almost 150,000 workers in the semiconductor field, including more than 50,000 engineers. Global competition and supply chain risk are prompting a reshoring of semiconductor production and workforce expertise to the U.S to meet this urgent economic and national security mandate: rapidly build to size the needed workforce in a short period of time. At Purdue, we are showing the way how to quickly, and at scale, develop skilled talent for specific industry sectors, in this case semiconductors. This episode discusses our initiatives with four Purdue faculty whose work is central to our microelectronics workforce development thrust: Peter Bermel, Kerrie Douglas, Vijay Raghunathan and David Janes.

Few mysteries have captured the American imagination like the disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, while attempting to become the first woman pilot to circumnavigate the world. Earhart spent several years at Purdue, which invited her to come to campus and inspire our women students in STEM careers. Earhart stayed in the women’s residence hall for a few weeks each semester giving lectures, counseling women on careers, and advising the aeronautical engineering department on its nascent program in aeronautics. She prepped for the flight at Purdue’s airport, and flew in the skies above campus grounds. Tony Romeo, CEO of underwater exploration company Deep Sea Vision, believes it has found her plane in the Pacific on the ocean floor. Tony and two Purdue professors, Sammie Morris and Bill Crossley, discuss Amelia’s time at Purdue the flight and what might have gone wrong, the recovery mission, and what this adventurous, pioneering woman meant to America.

There’s a lot more to the wonder drugs that provide life-changing treatments than the research breakthroughs that enable them. Just because you make something work in a lab doesn’t mean you can produce it at scale, especially given the fact that pharmaceuticals are inherently unstable. After discovery of the novel substance (molecule) comes follow-on steps like manufacturing (at acceptable yields), packaging, quality assurance, storage/preservation, logistics/transportation, and regulatory approval — all obstacles to overcome so the new therapeutic’s benefits can be realized across society, including remote, underserved populations. Elizabeth Topp and Alina Alexeenko discuss the ins and outs of advanced pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturing — including in space — and the nexus of Purdue and Indiana as a powerhouse in this strategic economic and social impact sector.

The introduction of quantum elements into classical computing is revolutionizing semiconductor technology, as researchers push the boundaries of knowledge at the convergence of physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. Quantum transport of electrons might sound like something from Star Trek, but the flow and spin of electrons at an atomic scale is what makes possible modern semiconductor technology advances, like the billion-plus transistors in the smartphone. Supriyo Datta was recently elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and has been called “one of the most original thinkers in the field of nanoscale electronics.” Here he explains his ideas about quantum physics in an engineering context and the role of quantum and electron spin — “spintronics” — in delivering the compute horsepower for today’s advances in AI, Internet of Things, edge computing, autonomy, and optimization.