Professor Emeritus Stanley H. Johnson compiled a history of our department, A 150-Year History of Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh, at the urging of Gary Harlow, Professor and Department Chair, Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics.
Available materials from the student newspaper The Brown and White and Lehigh catalogs archive were used in the creation of this document. Several faculty members, both emeritus and current, were kind enough to contribute reminiscences of the more recent chapters of our history.
The department would like to thank the students, alumni, and friends who contributed their time and recollections to this effort.
Department Timeline:
1866
First full year of classes at Lehigh
1881
Joe Klein becomes the first mechanical engineering professor
1883
First Master of Science degree is awarded
1885
Tau Beta Pi (National Engineering Society) is founded
1914-18
First World War years
1929
Packard Laboratory is functionally completed; James Ward Packard (class of 1884) donated $1.2 million
1936
First Ph.D. degrees awarded; ABET accreditation of programs which continues uninterrupted until present day.
1950
Mechanical engineering becomes an independent department
1956
Libroscope general Precision Computer arrives
1957
Department of Mechanics is formed, names Professor Ferdinand Beer as chair
1968
ME and Mechanics merge, Professor Beer chairs the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department
1977-1984
Douglas Abbot chairs the department
1984-1990
Fazil Erdogan chairs the department
1985
All Lehigh faculty get a free Zenith personal computer, a first for most.
1990-1996
Robert Wei chairs the department
1996-2002
Charles Smith chairs the department
2002-2008
Herman Nied chairs the department
2008-2021
Gary Harlow chairs the department
2021-present
Arindam Banerjee chairs the department