Biographies

Robert Thornton is MacFarlane Professor of Economics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in economics at the University of Illinois in 1970 and his (H)AB in classical languages and philosophy at Xavier University in 1965. Before coming to Lehigh, he worked as a research assistant for the Brookings Institution. His areas of research include labor market discrimination, unions and collective bargaining, occupational licensing and forensic economics. He has written or edited 15 books and collective volumes, most recently (2005) "Fundamentals of Labor Economics" (with Thomas Hyclak and Geraint Johnes), and "Developments in Litigation Economics" (with Patrick Gaughan).

He has also written nearly 100 articles, which have appeared in such journals as the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of Human Resources, Industrial Relations, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and Journal of Labor Research. He has received research grants from the Earhart Foundation, the McKenna Foundation, and the U.S. Office of Education. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Forensic Economics and a series editor for Elsevier Press.

Thornton served as national president of NAFE, the National Association of Forensic Economists, from 1989-90. He has also been chairman of Lehigh's Department of Economics and is associate director of Lehigh's Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise. He is editor of the Martindale Center's undergraduate research journal, "Perspectives on Business and Economics." Awards that he has received at Lehigh include the Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1974 and in 1992, as well as the Carl and Ingeborg Beidleman Research Award in 1999.

On the (much) less serious side, he has written the "Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations" (Barnes and Noble Books, 2005) and has also contributed to the Journal of Irreproducible Results and Annals of Improbable Research.

On November 1, 2004, Mohamed S. El-Aasser became the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Lehigh University.  Prior to his appointment as Provost, Dr. El-Aasser served Lehigh University as the Dean of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science from July 1, 2001 to October 31, 2004 and as Chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering from September 1, 1996 to June 30, 2001.  He was also appointed and served as a Lee Iacocca Professor of Engineering from 1992 to 2000.  He is internationally known for his research in polymer colloids and emulsion polymerization processes.  His principal research interests are associated with kinetics and mechanisms of hetero-polymerization processes which includes modeling and control, the thermodynamic and kinetic phenomena involved in developing morphological features in latex systems, and the colloidal and surface interactions in latexes and their film formation. He and his research group in the Emulsion Polymers Institute pioneered the field of miniemulsions.

Dr. El-Aasser received his undergraduate and Master's degree at the University of Alexandria, Egypt and his Ph.D. at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.  The Ottomass Distinguished Fellowship and the Pulp and Paper Research Institute’s Fellowship supported his studies toward the Ph.D. degree. Upon completion of his Ph.D. studies in 1972, he joined Lehigh University first as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Surface and Coating Research, and then as assistant professor of chemical engineering, where he expanded his research activities covering wide areas of polymer colloids and emulsion polymerization. He has been invited to numerous international conferences in his field throughout the world.  He has also organized and chaired several meetings and symposia, most notably the Gordon Research Conference on Polymer Colloids, and the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Future Directions in Polymer Colloids".

Over the past 30 years, Dr. El-Aasser has been the principal and co-principal investigator on many research grants and contracts with funding from NASA, NSF, DOE and numerous industrial companies.  He is the Director of the Emulsion Polymers Institute, which interacts with industry via a successful liaison program with 25 industrial member companies from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Korea.  He is the founder of the NSF/IUCRC Polymer Interfaces Center at Lehigh and acted as its first director for 5 years.  He assumed the Chairmanship of the Department of Chemical Engineering in September of 1996.  Over the past 30 years, he and his students and postdoctoral fellows authored 343 published technical articles.  He holds 9 U.S. patents, 5 edited books based on symposia meetings, and, his most recent book entitled "Emulsion Polymerization and Emulsion Polymers" was published in December 1997 by Wiley.  A total of 63 Ph.D. students and 53 M.S. graduate students have had Dr. El-Aasser as their major professor and advisor. In addition, he was the co-advisor for 24 Ph.D. students.  All told, he has served on a total of 128 dissertation committees.  He currently advises 3 Ph.D. candidates; co-advises 1 Ph.D. candidate; and 1 postdoctoral fellow.