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Dr. Mung Chiang to replace Mitch Daniels as Purdue University president

Dr. Mung Chiang will take over for Daniels, who is retiring, on Jan. 1, 2023.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Board of Trustees announced Friday its unanimous election of Dr. Mung Chiang as the university's next president.

Chiang will replace current President Mitch Daniels, who is retiring after has being in the role since January 2013.

"This is the highest, most humbling honor that I could ever imagine," Chiang told 13News.

Chiang, the current John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering and Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Purdue, will take over as president Jan. 1, 2023.

"It is the highest and most humbling honor to be selected by the Board of Trustees as the next president of Purdue University: the unique and most remarkable land-grant university in the land of the free," Chiang said in a statement. "Throughout the past 153 years, and spanning from the Wabash River to the moon, generations of Boilermakers contributed to our state, to our country, and to humanity in immeasurable ways. There is no other place like Purdue."

Click here to read Chiang's full statement.

Credit: Purdue University Newsroom
Dr. Mung Chiang (right) will replace Mitch Daniels (left) as the president of Purdue University on Jan. 1, 2023.

In Chiang's five years at Purdue, he has helped lead the university to its highest rankings ever among graduate programs, online programs, undergraduate education and student population.

According to the university, Chiang, who holds 25 patents and has founded three companies, played a central role in establishing new relationships with federal agencies in the national security and economic development sectors, and in recruiting new companies to invest and create jobs in Purdue’s Discovery Park District. He spent 2020 as scientific and technology advisor to the U.S. secretary of state on a prestigious Intergovernmental Personnel Act appointment. 

As for academic honors, Chiang received the Alan T. Waterman Award in 2013 as the nation’s top scientist under the age of 40 for his excellence in edge computing, internet congestion, cloud and video optimization, and other research areas.

Credit: Purdue University newsroom
Mitch Daniels has been the president of Purdue University since January 2013.

Board of Trustees Chairman Michael Berghoff thanked Daniels for his service and said, "The last decade has seen Purdue attain unprecedented levels of national recognition, reflected in record enrollments, academic rankings, and overall reputation."

Chiang also recognized Daniels in his statement: 

"President Daniels built Purdue into the most consequential public university in the United States. Under Mitch's leadership, our university attained the strongest academic reputation, from record-breaking enrollment to all-time-high research excellence, from the Ever True campaign to the transformed campus. Purdue led the country in safely reopening during the pandemic, while its financial foundation is fortified stronger than ever before. But there's even more. Mitch is also the most innovative president in America: affordability through tuition freeze, 21st century land grant through Purdue Global, and economic growth in Indiana through entrepreneurship and the Discovery Park District in West Lafayette.

The amazing success of the Daniels' Decade must continue."

In a statement, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb commended Daniels, his "partner and friend," for his 10 years of service to Purdue, and looked forward to working with Chiang:

"My partner and friend, President Daniels, is part of a generation of proud Boilermakers who take small steps and turn them into giant leaps. Purdue University always has been a world class institution with successful graduates spanning the globe, and Mitch has taken the university to even higher levels.

During his 10 years at the helm, Mitch has delivered higher education at the highest proven value, from freezing tuition during his entire tenure, to creating a national online university, establishing a network of Indiana STEM charter schools, and making record investments in world-class research.

He has always kept Purdue’s land-grant mission as its core strategy and spent each day opening the doors of higher education to every Hoosier willing to put in the work to be a Boilermaker.

I am eager to work with Dr. Mung Chiang as he takes the reins. I know he has had the opportunity to learn from the best and will keep the university’s forward motion moving at a fast pace."

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