In Business Insider's list of the most powerful female engineers of 2017, Jill Hruby is #2. Hruby, a Purdue ME grad, is the director of Sandia National Laboratories, the first female to ever run a national lab.

A new consortium of Purdue Engineering faculty and facilities, with expertise in simulation-based engineering of materials and structures, is now offering partnerships with Indiana-based manufacturers.

Purdue Hyperloop is back from California, after competing in the first ever real-world Hyperloop tests at SpaceX headquarters. Out of 27 teams, Purdue's pod was one of only 7 that passed all the requirements to be allowed into the test track -- a mile-long vacuum chamber tube. It was also the only entry made entirely of composites... which garnered notice from SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk. Purdue Hyperloop's faculty advisor is associate professor of mechanical engineering Guillermo Paniagua.

Mario Migliorino is a PhD candidate in thermoacoustics, under assistant ME professor Carlo Scalo. Mario recently shared his experiences coming from Rome to Purdue, including corn mazes, American football games, and even a Diwali celebration.

How do you learn to design multi-million dollar roller coasters? And how do you test those coasters, even before they're built? For the last decade, Purdue ME professors Jeff Rhoads and Chuck Krousgrill have taught ME497: Roller Coaster Dynamics. The basic physics principles of inertia, centripetal acceleration, and gravity are put to the test in the most daunting of real-world applications: a thrill ride. Students design the underlying structures, but also come up with a theme and create an exciting story and environment for potential theme park guests. After presenting their projects, students use Oculus Rift goggles to experience the sights and sounds of their rides in VR.

Researchers have introduced a new type of "super-resolution" microscopy and used it to discover the precise 'walking' mechanism behind tiny DNA structures, according to Jong Hyun Choi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

Ralph E. Bailey, 92, passed away on February 1, 2017. He was a great friend to Purdue Mechanical Engineering.

In Purdue's ME375 class, mechanical engineering juniors study systems, measurement, and controls. The grand finale is a grand prix: students build a robot and program it to autonomously sense and follow a straight line. In recent years, the competition has intensified, with a glitzy new racetrack in the shape of the Purdue "P".

His father pledged at Purdue with John Wooden. He met his wife at a Notre Dame-Purdue football game (now 53 years together). He was chief engineer of a 10,000-ton ammunition ship at age 21. He worked at AT&T for 37 years. Read more about the remarkable story of Jim Eibel (BSME '58), and his vision for Purdue ME's future.

The medical miniaturization journal Lab on a Chip (Feb 2017) features a paper by Cagri Savran, professor of mechanical engineering. Cagri developed a device which can detect, capture, and measure prostate cancer cells, from a simple blood sample.