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Corporations and Foundations > Research

At Lehigh University, undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, and professional research staff work side-by-side with faculty on a wide range of scholarly work and research activities. Research occurs in a rich variety of forms, ranging from the pursuits of individual students and faculty to large collaborative programs, centers, and institutes involving many faculty, students, and staff from across colleges and the university. Our faculty members conduct research and develop solutions that address the needs of industry, government, and society as a whole. Here we highlight a few of the many research activities at Lehigh. For more information, please contact the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

BIOENGINEERING
The Bioengineering program at Lehigh aims to prepare undergraduate students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators, leaders, and lifelong learners who can have a positive impact at the interfaces of the physical and life sciences and engineering. The program works across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and provides practical experience for students. Faculty members from various departments have active research collaborations in biopharmaceuticals, cell and tissue engineering, biophotonics/bioelectronics, and biomaterials. This teamwork makes Lehigh an ideal partner for the development of biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, advanced optical imaging, biomaterials, and related areas.

ENERGY
The Energy Research Center (ERC) serves as the focal point for energy research activities at Lehigh, using its contacts in industry and government to provide sponsored research opportunities for faculty, students, and research staff. ERC research programs deal with energy conversion and power generation, environmental aspects of energy production and use, energy conservation, renewable energy, materials for energy applications, and a wide range of fundamental engineering and science investigations that form the basis of new energy processes and systems. This research is funded by U.S. and foreign companies and by government sponsors, such as the U.S. Department of Energy, EPA, and NSF.

ENVIRONMENT
The Environmental Initiative at Lehigh coordinates research efforts related to the environment across a multidisciplinary group of departments. Centered on the themes of earth system science, human interactions with the environment, and environmental engineering and technologies, the Initiative’s research focuses on earth dynamics and natural hazards, environmental change and remediation, advanced treatment processes and energy conversion technologies, K-12 environmental education, and watershed systems.

FINANCIAL SERVICES
To enhance the classroom experience and apply theory to actual business problems, the Financial Services Laboratory (FSL) at the College of Business and Economics provides a real-time link between world events and their impact on financial markets. The FSL uses software and data streams from Thomson Financial, Market News International, and Lava Trading, among others. 

HUMANITIES
When biomaterials, prosthetic intelligence, and other technologies complicate the issue of precisely what it means to be human, the study of art, literature, music, and history take on increasing importance as both shapers and interpreters of culture and technology.

Lehigh’s Humanities Center encourages students and faculty to collaborate across disciplines through research, visiting scholars, conferences, reading groups, discussion forums, and curricular programs centered on a different theme each year. 

The Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies explores the history, religion, literature, and culture of the Jewish people. The classroom experience is enhanced by lectures from visiting scholars, films, seminars, exhibits, and conferences.

The Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute supports research and education in eighteenth-century studies and provides research opportunities, an annual Ph.D. dissertation fellowship, symposia and lectures by visiting scholars, and publications.

INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
From the study of information and systems engineering to sensors and wireless networking, Lehigh’s researchers work closely with industry, government, and other organizations. An image fusion algorithm developed at Lehigh, for example, helps law enforcement personnel detect concealed weapons by combining different image sources. Lehigh’s high performance computing researchers tackle computationally demanding problems from stock market analysis to the tracking of drug smugglers.

MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
At Lehigh, faculty, staff, and students lead and participate in a wide variety of interdisciplinary research and educational programs, including nanomaterials, structural materials, materials for micro-electronic and optical applications, biomaterials, and materials for biomedical devices. A superb array of fabrication, testing, and characterization tools gives Lehigh the ability to conduct research on everything from nanoparticles to megastructures.

The Institute for Metal Forming goes beyond classical metal forming research to conduct studies of microstructural responses, including projects in powder processing, microstructure analysis, and the forming of polymers.

The Center for Polymer Science and Engineering enables Lehigh faculty and students from chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, mechanical engineering, and physics to perform interdisciplinary research in polymers, and fosters the dissemination of research findings through publications, short courses, campus-wide seminars, and distance education courses.

The Emulsion Polymers Institute develops broad-based fundamental and applied research in the area of polymer colloids.

The International Materials Institute for New Functionality in Glass, established at Lehigh by the National Science Foundation in cooperation with Penn State University, promotes new applications of glass through international collaborations/exchanges, and provides glass science education resources from across the world to pre-college and university students, researchers in industry, and the general public.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS
Nanotechnology research at Lehigh spans disciplines from materials science and electrical engineering to chemical engineering and environmental engineering. Researchers have secured federal grants to study nanodevices and sensors; to explore nanocatalysis to convert pollutants into harmless substances; to manipulate carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and DNA hybrids for applications in cancer research; and to develop nanoparticles to clean groundwater of toxins.

At the Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, the largest central electron microscopy facility of any university in the country, scientists use some of the best nanocharacterization equipment in the world to image and manipulate single molecules and atoms. Lehigh’s world-renowned Microscopy School has drawn hundreds of international researchers each summer since 1970.

Scientists and engineers in the Sherman Fairchild Center for Solid-State Studies use electron-beam lithography to create nanostructures for nanoelectronics and photonics, with an emphasis on understanding the fundamental electrical, material, and optical properties of these structures.

OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY
Lehigh’s Center for Optical Technologies advances research and converts it quickly into commercial products. Current areas of research are optical network technologies and sensor and display technologies. Close ties to industry and interdisciplinary collaboration enhance Lehigh’s expertise in the fabrication of optical devices.

SOCIAL SCIENCES
Faculty and graduate students in the social sciences explore human understanding of self, others, and the world. Lehigh’s emerging research focus on social change in the context of globalization cuts across the social sciences, the humanities, education, natural sciences, and business and economics, as well as interdisciplinary studies such as Women’s Studies and area studies programs such as Asian Studies and Africana Studies.

The Globalization and Social Change Initiative promises to transform the study of global issues at Lehigh, bringing together faculty with global research interests from across the university, and enhancing research and teaching on topics of international, social, political, economic, environmental and cultural concern. With its distinctive United Nations recognition as a non-governmental organization (NGO), Lehigh hosts seminars on campus and in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The Center for Social Research is a multidisciplinary organization designed to stimulate and conduct research involving the social and behavioral sciences, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and education.

The Social Science Data Center supports research needs from the university, advancing data-driven research being carried out by faculty and students.

SPECIAL EDUCATION
Lehigh’s College of Education faculty is among the most research active in the nation. The Center for Promoting Research to Practice is designed to bring together schools, families, and their communities to discover how children and adolescents at-risk for or with disabilities learn, and to put research into practice in school districts. Examples of research programs in the Center and across faculty include non-pharmaceutical interventions for children with ADHD, enhancing math performance of 7th grade students, and language and literacy growth in early childhood.

STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS
The Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Center is internationally recognized for research on structural systems, materials essential to the civil infrastructure, and infra-structure hazard mitigation. Research programs include the testing and study of bridges and ships, in-service infrastructure monitoring, non-destructive evaluation, earthquake resistance testing of buildings and other large structures, and fire resistance testing of structural assemblages.

The George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Simulation (NEES) facility at ATLSS, supported by the National Science Foundation, conducts earthquake engineering simulation to investigate the seismic response of structural and non-structural systems for buildings and bridges.

URBAN EDUCATION
The Center for Developing Urban Educational Leaders cultivates educational leadership in urban communities by conducting research, developing leadership competencies, and improving leadership practice which enhances student learning and development.

VALUE CHAIN, SUPPLY CHAIN AND LOGISTICS
Through the Center for Value Chain Research, faculty and students team with corporate partners to explore issues such as real-time decision-making, value proposition, collaborative product development, managing multiple demand channels, and other general issues of value chain management.

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH CENTERS

Chemical Process Modeling and Control Research Center

Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise

Murray H. Goodman Center for Real Estate Studies