College of Engineering to welcome new Hall of Fame members for 2025
The Wayne State University College of Engineering will honor 10 prominent alumni at its Night of the Stars event on Thursday, April 3 in the WSU Student Center. Praveen Ramteke, M.S. ’05, and Kalpana Yendluri, M.S. ’95, comprise the Hall of Fame class of 2025 and will bring membership to 159 honorees since the Hall of Fame’s inception in 1983. The College of Engineering will also recognize distinguished engineers and computer scientists from all eight departments.
Ramteke serves as the avionics networking lead for Blue Origin’s New Glenn program, where he leads the design and deployment of the vehicle’s advanced network architecture. With more than 20 years of experience in vehicle on-board network architecture and systems engineering, he has developed high-reliability, safety-critical networks for aerospace, automotive and off-highway industries. Prior to joining Blue Origin, Ramteke contributed to NASA’s Artemis Program and spent more than a decade at Caterpillar Incorporated, advancing network architectures for heavy machinery. A 2005 graduate of Wayne State’s electrical engineering master’s program, his work has shaped the future of networked systems in transportation and aerospace.
Yendluri is managing director and head of data and analytics environments at Bank of Montreal, where she leads global teams supporting the organization’s cloud-first strategy. Over a career spanning three decades, she has held leadership roles with Equifax, Ally Financial and Experian, driving data engineering and technological modernization across the financial services industry. Yendluri earned her master’s degree in computer science from Wayne State in 1995 and remains deeply engaged with the university through the Engineering Alumni Council, mentorship programs and international outreach. She is also active with a variety of nonprofit organizations, working to empower the next generation of female leaders. She has been recognized as a Global Data Power Woman by CDO Magazine for the past three years.
The distinguished engineers and computer scientists include:
- Biomedical Engineering
Craig Morgan, B.S. ‘79
Co-owner and engineering manager (retired), Denton ATD, Inc. - Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Hitesh Handa, M.S. ’07, Ph.D. ‘08
Associate professor and distinguished faculty fellow, University of Georgia - Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jim Rooney, B.S. ’62, M.S. ‘67
President and co-founder (retired), R&M Engineering - Computer Science
Grace Metri, B.S. ’06, M.S. ’09, Ph.D. ‘14
Principal strategic alliance manager, NVIDIA - Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michael Jacobs
Founder and CEO, Applied Manufacturing Technologies - Engineering Technology
Tommy White, M.S. ‘96
Assistant professor of teaching, Wayne State University - Industrial and Systems Engineering
Narender Oruganti, M.S. ‘83
Partner, 1st Wave Marketing - Mechanical Engineering
Liming Chen, Ph.D. ‘95
President, Horizon Robotics
Dean Ali Abolmaali and the Engineering Alumni Association will welcome the honorees and their families — as well as colleagues, alumni and industry leaders — to Night of the Stars beginning at 6 p.m. Tickets to attend the event are $50 per person, with proceeds benefiting scholarships and student programs. Reservations can be made online.
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The Wayne State University College of Engineering Hall of Fame was founded in 1983 to recognize and honor distinguished alumni who, through their leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation, have made significant industrial, educational and societal contributions to the engineering and computer science professions. The Hall of Fame celebrates the rich history of the College of Engineering and provides exceptional standards by which Wayne State University engineering students can measure success.