The Department of Chemical Engineering has its roots in Lehigh's Chemistry Department. We have recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of our degree program. Click here to learn more about our Centennial Celebration. Click here to read our Centennial brochure.

Prior to the official inception of the Chemical Engineering Department in 1951, Lehigh offered a degree in Industrial Chemistry from 1895 - 1907. That degree was granted by the Chemistry Department.  Starting in 1907, Lehigh granted its first Bachelor degrees in "Chemical Engineering", although the first Chemical Engineering faculty weren't hired into the University until 1927. That year the Chemistry Department hired Professors Simmons and Theis as Professors of Chemical Engineering. These early Chemical Engineering faculty members typically held baccalaureate degrees in Chemical Engineering, with Ph.D's in Chemistry. The Chemical Engineering Degree Program continued through the depression. Towards the end of the depression, but prior to World War II, the graduate program was initiated, granting mostly masters degrees and a few Ph.D.'s.
 
In the early 1950's, Lehigh University, prompted by suggestions from an industrial review board, took steps to organize a formal Chemical Engineering Department. In 1951, Professor Harvey Neville, then head of the Chemistry Department and Chemical Engineering Degree Program, hired Professors Leonard Wenzel and Alan Foust to form the Chemical Engineering Department. Professor Foust served as the first Department Head. 

From the time of its official formation in the early 1950's, the Chemical Engineering Department was housed on the lower Asa Packer Campus in the Chandler-Ullmann building. In the photo to the left, you can see the multitude of natural-draft ventilation stacks adorning the original home of the Chemical Engineering department.
 
The Martin Dewey Whitaker Laboratory (right) housed the Cemical Engineering Department between 1967 and 1987. In the late 1980's the university acquired Bethlehem Steel's Homer Research Laboratories, and renamed the primary building on the Mountaintop Campus "Iacocca Hall" (pictured below), in honor of Lee Iacocca, '45, who led the campaign to acquire and endow the facility. Iacocca Hall is the department's current residence.

Today, Lehigh's Chemical Engineering Department is home to 15 active and six adjunct or emeritus faculty members. This large number of faculty provides approximately a 6:1 student:faculty ratio.  The department grants approximately 40 bachelor's and 20 graduate degrees annually. Research grants in the department total almost 3.5 million dollars yearly. Click here to see a slide show that describes the Chemical Engineering program at Lehigh. 

The undergraduate program is accredited by the  Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), Inc., 111 Market Place, Suite 1050  Baltimore, MD 21202 Telephone: 410-347-7700 Fax: 410-625-2238 E-mail: accreditation@abet.org Website: www.abet.org. The program has been accredited since 1936. Click here to learn more about engineering accreditation.

The graduate program placed 27th (out of a nationwide total of about 180 Chemical Engineering Graduate Programs) in a recent ranking by the National Research Council. The department has also been ranked fifth for average citations per paper among the top 100 federally funded U.S. universities that published at least 100 papers in ISI-indexed journals of chemical engineering between 1996 and 2000.  This ranking is reported by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and is contained on their webpage. 

To learn more about our recent accomplishments, please read our Annual Reports:

2004 Annual Report

2003 Annual Report

2002 Annual Report

2001 Annual Report

Click here to visit the P. C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science newsletter archives.