Interdisciplinary research is our world's best hope for addressing the complex challenges that lie ahead. Lehigh's Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs) bring together leading faculty and graduate researchers from a variety of fields to focus on a specific challenge. This innovative approach allows these research teams to use their combined strengths to confront problems from every perspective and to develop multifaceted solutions.
The themes and structure of the IRIs emerged through a faculty-led envisioning process initiated in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, and included faculty participation from across the campus. Each of the Institutes develops strong academic, industrial, and governmental partnerships that will serve to amplify the impact of Lehigh research teams while connecting them to colleagues addressing similar issues.
The university's IRIs are as follows:
Institute for Data, Intelligent Systems, and Computation
The Institute for Data, Intelligent Systems, and Computation (I-DISC) is devoted to the study of problems that involve massive amounts of data and/or large-scale computations, and developing the science that enables the extraction of useful and actionable information across disciplines and research fields.
Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Energy
Research within the Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Energy (I-CPIE) underpins all aspects of modern society. The demands and impacts of society's reliance upon energy, communications, structural, and transportation systems requires a broad approach that's focused not only on engineering systems, but on improving people's lives.
Institute for Functional Materials and Devices
The Institute for Functional Materials and Devices (I-FMD) focuses on synthesis, fabrication, processing, and characterization of materials, devices and related systems. Existing research interests include photonics and electronics, metals, ceramics, biomaterials, polymers, and composites; current efforts incorporate devices ranging in size from the nanometer and micrometer scales and beyond.
