11 New faculty members join Purdue CS
09-03-2026
11 new faculty members join the Purdue Computer Science Department
Purdue University’s Department of Computer Science has welcomed 11 new faculty members, strengthening its commitment to excellence in education, research and innovation.
The new faculty members bring expertise across a diverse range of areas in computer science, further expanding the department’s capabilities in research and education and positioning Purdue at the forefront of transformative discoveries.
“This addition of 11 new faculty members underscores our dedication to advancing the frontiers of computer science,” said Petros Drineas, department head and professor of computer science. “Their diverse expertise will strengthen our department and accelerate Purdue Computes’ mission to lead in education, research and discovery.”
The faculty expansion supports Purdue Computes, a university-wide initiative focused on advancing Purdue’s leadership in computing, physical artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum science and engineering. By connecting faculty and students across the university and investing in talent, research and infrastructure, Purdue Computes builds on Purdue’s strengths in these areas to advance technological and computational innovation at scale. The addition of these 11 faculty members represents a continued investment in Purdue’s computing enterprise and strengthens the Department of Computer Science’s contributions to this broader university effort.
Joining the Department of Computer Science in the fall of 2026
Federico Cifuentes-Urtubey has joined the department as an assistant teaching professor. He earned his PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on privacy in wireless systems, network security, and network infrastructure design and analysis. His work aims to design and evaluate systems that enhance user privacy in wireless networks while maintaining performance and usability.
Mahimna Kelkar has joined the department as an assistant professor. He received his PhD in computer science from Cornell University. His research focuses on building secure protocols in decentralized and permissionless environments using techniques from applied cryptography, distributed systems, and game theory. He is also a senior research scientist at Offchain Labs.
Ilia Sucholutsky has joined the department as an assistant professor. He previously served as a Faculty Fellow and assistant professor at the NYU Center for Data Science. His research explores how humans and AI can work together as productive partners, with a focus on understanding shared structures between human and AI reasoning, designing interactive systems that support human-AI collaboration, and identifying when and why these partnerships fail.
Blaine Rothrock has joined the department as an assistant teaching professor. He earned his PhD in computer science from Northwestern University. His research focuses on human-computer interaction and low-power wireless embedded systems, with applications in healthcare and environmental sensing. His work explores the design of accessible, low-cost sensing technologies and tools that make it easier to develop, deploy and use wireless sensing systems for applied research.
Charlotte Lambert has joined the department as an assistant teaching professor. She completed her PhD in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research in Human-Computer Interaction specifically aims to make online spaces more welcoming to users through the encouragement of healthy behaviors and improved methods of moderation.
Midhul Vuppalapati has joined the department as an assistant professor. He received his PhD in computer science from Cornell University. His research focuses broadly on computer systems, with a particular emphasis on rethinking the principles underlying operating systems and distributed systems in light of the rapid evolution of datacenter hardware. His work explores how modern systems can better leverage heterogeneous compute, memory and networking technologies to enable efficient cloud computing for next-generation AI-driven applications.
Haoran You has joined the department as an assistant professor. He earned his PhD in computer science from Georgia Tech and was a research scientist at Adobe. His research focuses on efficient AI systems through algorithm-hardware co-design, spanning both hardware-aware AI algorithms and hardware accelerators tailored for those algorithms. His work addresses the growing systems challenges posed by advanced AI/ML models, such as large language and vision models, enabling AI on resource-constrained edge devices and improving scalability in cloud platforms.
About the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University
Founded in 1962, the Department of Computer Science was created to be an innovative base of knowledge in the emerging field of computing as the first degree-awarding program in the United States. The department continues to advance the computer science industry through research. U.S. News & World Report ranks the department No. 16 and No. 15 overall in undergraduate and graduate computer science, respectively. Graduates of the program are able to solve complex and challenging problems in many fields. Our consistent success in an ever-changing landscape is reflected in the record undergraduate enrollment, increased faculty hiring, innovative research projects, and the creation of new academic programs. Learn more at cs.purdue.edu.