Vincent G. Grassi, a professor of practice in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, passed away May 3 in The Villages, Fla., from esophageal cancer. He was 64.
Grassi, a much-loved instructor, taught courses in all four years of chemical engineering education, freshman through senior year. He was the 2019 recipient of Lehigh’s Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Award for Excellence in Teaching, which recognizes a faculty member who demonstrates an exceptional talent for encouraging students to understand alternatives and to make choices, and who knows how to extract from students the full measure of their potential to learn. Those who nominated Grassi said that his passion for his profession was evident in every second of his teaching. Grassi also received the Rossin College Faculty Experiential Learning Excellence Award in 2019.
“In the passing away of Dr. Vince Grassi, we have lost an unusually gifted instructor, passionate student mentor and a dear colleague who embraced new methods of pedagogy, took an active role in the KEEN [Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network] initiative within the department and explored new tools of engineering education through entrepreneurial skill development,” said Mayuresh Kothare, R. L. McCann Professor and chair of the ChBE department. “He took a particularly active role in encouraging women chemical engineering students to excel in their coursework and eventual career planning."
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