AAE Prof. Inseok Hwang has been named a University Faculty Scholar. The University Faculty Scholar program was created at Purdue in 1998. Recipients of this honor are tenured associate professors and full professors who have been in that rank for no more than five years and are named in recognition of their scholarship.

Hwang has been a professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 2004. He is head of the Flight Dynamics and Control/Hybrid Systems Laboratory. The research in the FD&C/HS Lab focuses on modeling and control of the Cyber-Physical System (CPS), which is a complex (networked) system with interacting physical and logical components, and its applications to safety-critical aerospace systems such as aircraft, spacecraft, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Air Traffic Control (ATC), and multiple-vehicle systems (e.g., swarm of UAS).

University Faculty Scholars are nominated by their academic areas, reviewed by a committee of named and distinguished professors in the College of Engineering that makes a recommendation to the dean, and approved by the provost. They receive funding to support their research. The newly named University Faculty Scholars will begin their five-year terms in the fall of 2017.

AAE Prof. Vikas Tomar was named a University Faculty Scholar in the fall of 2016. Prof. Alina Alexeenko started her term as a University Faculty Scholar in the fall of 2015.