Purdue Polytechnic sees seven new faculty members joining the college at West Lafayette, effective as of the fall semester 2026. These new, world-class educators and researchers join the School of Applied and Creative Computing and the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. All seven bring extensive experience from both the private sector and academia to Purdue Polytechnic. Incoming faculty will lead courses, mentor undergraduate and graduate students and drive research in mission-critical subjects, relevant to a wide range of industries.
Ahmad Esmaeili
Ahmad Esmaeili joins the School of Applied and Creative Computing as an assistant professor of practice in applied AI. Before coming to Purdue, he was an assistant professor of computer science in the School of Computing at Wichita State University. His research interests include distributed artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on multi-agent systems, distributed machine learning, and collaborative learning in decentralized environments. He has developed and taught courses in areas ranging from AI agents and deep learning to algorithm design and analysis. At Purdue, he teaches AI Fundamentals and Mobile Programming. Esmaeili earned his Ph.D. from Purdue's Department of Computer and Information Technology. He is an active member of ACM, IEEE, and AAAI, contributing to the research community through conference organizing, program committees, and journal reviewing.
Bo Hui
Bo Hui is an assistant professor in the School of Applied and Creative Computing. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on AI security and privacy, including the security of agentic AI systems, privacy-preserving training of large language models, and privacy issues in AI infrastructure.
Xiao Jing
Xiao Jing joins the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology this fall as an assistant professor of aviation. He earned his bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue before heading to the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering and a Ph.D. in computational science and engineering. He conducted his doctoral research in the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory. His research focuses on aviation safety analytics, trustworthy artificial intelligence, and large language models for aviation decision support. His goal is to develop more reliable AI models and tools for identifying safety patterns and supporting decision-making in aviation.
Devin Lange
Devin Lange joins the School of Applied and Creative Computing as an assistant professor. Before coming to Purdue, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah, where he worked in the Visualization Design Lab at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute. His primary research area is data visualization applied to biomedical domains. More recently, he is exploring the integration of artificial intelligence into visualization systems.
Qianqian Song
Qianqian Song joins Purdue as an associate professor in the School of Applied and Creative Computing and director of the Purdue Polytechnic Digital Health Innovation Center. She holds a Ph.D., and her research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computational biology, and biomedical informatics. She focuses on developing next-generation AI approaches to better understand human disease and advance precision medicine. Song's research integrates complex biomedical data across molecular, cellular, tissue, and patient scales. Her group develops multimodal AI models to uncover disease mechanisms, predict therapeutic response, and advance precision diagnosis and treatment. She aims to foster collaborative research and translate emerging AI technologies into practical solutions to improve human health.
Daniel Ward II
Daniel Ward II joins the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology as a clinical professor. He holds a bachelor's degree in technical graphics from Purdue University and a master's degree in space studies. He has been a post-secondary educator for most of his 28-year career and was formerly a lecturer at Purdue teaching mechanical engineering technology and computer graphics courses. Every summer for the last 28 years, Ward has worked in technical environments as a government contract employee or faculty researcher with NASA and in various private industries. He served as a NASA Faculty Research Fellow with the Armstrong Flight Research Center, contributing to several experimental flight projects such as the X-33, X-34, X-38, X-53, and X-59. In 2011, he was selected as a researcher in the Microgravity Flight Program at the Johnson Space Center. He recently received two commendations from NASA for his work with the X-59 aircraft and his mentorship of Purdue capstone students.
Xueling Zhang
Xueling Zhang is an assistant professor in the School of Applied and Creative Computing. Prior to joining Purdue, she was an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research sits at the intersection of software engineering and software security and privacy. She develops testing and analysis techniques to improve the quality, reliability, and trustworthiness of software applications, with a particular focus on mobile applications and emerging platforms such as extended reality (XR).
