Prof. Dengfeng Sun appointed associate head of the No. 2 aerospace engineering graduate program in the U.S.
Purdue AAE professor Dengfeng Sun has been appointed the new associate head of the Gambaro Graduate Program of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His 5-year term leading the No. 2-ranked aerospace engineering graduate school officially began on August 12, 2024. Outgoing associate head Greg Blaisdell remains in AAE as professor.
Excited for the opportunity, Sun sees big shoes to fill. “It will be quite a challenge, if not impossible, to match Greg's outstanding achievements in building the nation's top aerospace engineering graduate program!” he says.
Sun joined the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAE) as an assistant professor in fall 2009, in the Aerospace Systems and Dynamics & Control research group — now called Autonomy and Control. Sun’s research areas include theory and application of control and optimization in aerospace engineering, particularly for networked dynamical systems such as air transportation and unmanned aerial vehicle systems.
He was named an associate fellow of AIAA in 2020. His contributions to science and engineering earned him the C.T. Sun Excellence in Research Award from AAE in 2022.
Sun earned a doctorate in civil engineering from University of California at Berkeley, a master’s in industrial and systems engineering from The Ohio State University, and a bachelor’s in precision instruments and mechanology from Tsinghua University in Beijing.