Alumni Updates

Electrical engineering alum Kate Johnson ’89 has been named president and CEO of technology company Lumen, effective November 2022, according to a press release.

Johnson, who will also serve on the company’s board of directors, is a highly successful technology executive leader. She has led various Fortune 100 companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and General Electric in digital and business transformation to drive growth.

Emily Whitehead made history when she became the first pediatric patient enrolled in a clinical trial investigating chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2012. Whitehead, who was six years old at the time, was battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. Ten years later, Emily remains in remission and is an active, healthy teenager.

Industrial and systems engineering alum Ray Pressburger ’05 has been named to a list of the Top 50 Healthcare Leaders in Consulting of 2022 published by the Consulting Report.

Pressburger is a managing director at Accenture Strategy working with the company’s life sciences clients on product commercialization. He joined the firm in 2005.

At its core, engineering is the art of problem solving.

But to practice that art—and practice it well—requires mastery of a more modest skill, says engineer, entrepreneur, professor, and Lehigh alum Keisha Antoine ’01 ’04G ’07 PhD.

“The most important thing I learned as a graduate student at Lehigh was how to discern a question to be answered,” says Antoine, who earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and her master’s and PhD in materials science and engineering in the Rossin College.

“Lehigh was my first bona fide introduction to America,” says Lehigh alum Sunil (Sunny) A. Misser ’89G. “I came to the U.S. to get the best possible education from a well-established American university and to build a successful career as a business leader. At that point in my life, I was chasing a version of the proverbial American dream, and Lehigh gave me that possibility.”

Jeff Karper ’06 ’08G believes it is important to support the success of others.

The Lehigh electrical engineering alum is a sensor hardware engineering manager for Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems. In this role, he leads an organization of electrical and computer engineers in product and technology development for multifunction sensors supporting ground, air, and sea-based systems.

Leah Spangler, 2018 PhD graduate of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering advised by Steven McIntosh and Dr. Bryan W.