From Stanford to Princeton to Purdue, here’s President-elect Mung Chiang’s journey to Northwestern

Illustration by Siri Reddy and Lucas Kubovchik

Mung Chiang studied at Stanford University and worked at Princeton University and Purdue University before being chosen as Northwestern’s president-elect.

Nineth Kanieski Koso, In Focus Editor

June 5, 2026

The University announced Purdue University President Mung Chiang as Northwestern’s 18th president on May 18.

From leading Purdue through significant Indiana state legislation-required changes to degree programs to winning prestigious awards for his research, Chiang’s path to NU is anything but short.

Chiang was born in Tianjin, China, in 1977 but moved to Hong Kong in 1988. He earned straight A’s in all 10 subjects for the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination before immigrating to the U.S. and heading to study electrical engineering and mathematics at Stanford University in 1996.

Stanford to Princeton

After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1999, Chiang stayed at Stanford to receive a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

Chiang published his thesis titled, “Solving nonlinear problems in communication systems using geometric programming and dualities,” in August 2003.

Upon receiving his Ph.D., Chiang took a job at Princeton University as an assistant professor of electrical engineering in September 2003, where he conducted research in optimization of communication systems, network architectures and information theory, among other topics.

Chiang founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009, working to combine theory and practice in networking research. According to ScienceDirect, network research aims to understand “the characteristics, structures, and dynamics complexity of the heterogeneous and complex networks” — from social to biological to information networks.

Also at Princeton, Chiang helped found multiple startups and industry consortia. He co-founded Datami and Zoomi — both of which focus on cybersecurity and AI-powered learning. Chiang holds 26 patents, mostly in network deployment.

During his nearly 14 years at Princeton, Chiang received multiple research awards. In 2013, he won the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, one of the most prestigious awards for young researchers. The following year, he received a Guggenheim fellowship. He also received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2007.

He published a book in 2012 titled, “Networked Life: 20 Questions and Answers,” answering questions about networks used by some of the biggest technology companies, and co-authored a textbook titled, “The Power of Networks: Six Principles That Connect Our Lives,” first published in 2016.

In 2014, Chiang was appointed director of Princeton’s Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, a center that works to create “societal impact through entrepreneurship, design, and innovative education,” according to the group’s website.

He also was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in Engineering at Princeton University in 2016 for implementing an interdisciplinary and “flipped classroom,” where students watch lectures prior to attending class, according to NU’s May 18 news release announcing Chiang’s selection as the University’s next president. He was also the inaugural chairman of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council.

Purdue University

In 2017, Chiang left Princeton and joined Purdue as its next College of Engineering dean. In nearly his first two years in the role, the College of Engineering saw a 52% jump in annual research awards and 40% more annual patent applications, according to a December 2019 Purdue news release.

Under his leadership, the College of Engineering also won six major national research centers from five federal agencies and created and funded online “affordable” master’s degrees, the release stated.

In 2020, Chiang served as director of the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, providing expertise on “the economic security of the nation’s global technology initiatives,” like artificial intelligence or 5G wireless networks, according to the release. He was the first engineer to hold the role.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences elected Chiang as one of its seven international fellows — one of two from the U.S. — in 2020. He also received the 2022 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Computer Communications Achievement Award, described by the IEEE as “the highest honor that can be bestowed on a researcher in the INFOCOM community.”

In 2022, Chiang became Purdue’s first Asian American president.

During his tenure as Purdue’s president, which lasted more than three years, Chiang weathered many challenges, including managing a student housing crisis, dealing with federal funding cuts and restructuring degree programs to comply with changes in Indiana state legislation.

From 2013 to 2025, Purdue’s enrollment at its main West Lafayette campus increased by nearly 40% while available local housing lagged behind, making it difficult for many students to find housing. In 2023, Chiang told local reporters that the keys to addressing this issue were to stop the growth of undergraduate enrollment and build new housing complexes.

Chiang maintained Purdue’s frozen tuition for the three years he served as president. He also made a deal with SK Hynix Inc., one of the world’s leading memory chip manufacturers, in 2024, to build a proposed $4 billion semiconductor chip manufacturing plant in West Lafayette.

On March 18, 2025, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to Chiang requesting information about Purdue’s policies, admissions and research related to international students from China.

“America’s student visa system has become a Trojan horse for Beijing, providing unrestricted access to our top research institutions and posing a direct threat to our national security. If left unaddressed, this trend will continue to displace American talent, compromise research integrity, and fuel China’s technological ambitions at our expense,” the committee wrote.

The letter ends with a request for information including the type of research Chinese nationals attending Purdue are conducting, the sources of tuition funding for each one of them, a list of laboratories where Chinese students work and a country-by-country breakdown of Purdue’s international applicants and enrollments.

In December 2025, the Purdue Exponent reported that after Chiang received the letter, Purdue’s Office of Graduate Recruitment and Success directed people involved in Purdue’s admissions department not to consider applicants from countries including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

In March, Purdue denied the existence of any such “ban” on international students from certain countries, saying in a statement that the press “misreported” the situation.

On May 18, NU’s Board of Trustees announced Chiang would become the University’s 18th president. Like at Purdue, Chiang will be NU’s first Asian American president.

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— President-elect Mung Chiang greets students, enjoys ice cream at Allison Dining Commons

— Purdue President Mung Chiang named 18th president of Northwestern