Faculty & Programs

The Lehigh Engineering community mourns the loss of Vincent G. Grassi, a professor of practice in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Professor Grassi passed away May 3, 2020, from cancer at the age of 64. He was beloved by his students and received the university's Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019. The Chemical Engineering Class of 2020 shared the following remembrances of Professor Grassi during a virtual memorial.

Anand Ramamurthi has been named P.C. Rossin Professor and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, effective September 1, 2020. 

The Industrial and Systems Engineering Department is pleased to welcome Dr. Karmel S. Shehadeh as Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, beginning August 15, 2020.

Dan M. Frangopol, the inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture at Lehigh University, and his former postdoc Yan Liu, an associate professor at the School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering in Wuhan, Hubei, China, are the recipients of the 2020 Raymond C. Reese Research Prize awarded by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

The latest episode of the Rossin Connection podcast series features Dr. Susan Perry, graduate coordinator and professor of practice in Lehigh's Department of Bioengineering. As the semester comes to a close, Susan shares how she figured out how to teach a lab online, how her students figured out how to build prosthetics at home, and the unusual visitor who crashed her Zoom meeting.

Natasha Vermaak, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, is the recipient of a 2020 Frontiers of Materials Award from The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS).

TMS is a “professional society that connects minerals, metals, and materials scientists and engineers who work in industry, academia, and government positions around the world.”

Justin Jaworski, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, studies the mechanisms of silent owl flight—an area of research that’s providing inspiration for innovation in the design of quieter wind turbines, airplanes, and other forms of technology. 

In partnership with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, researchers and faculty from Lehigh University’s Energy Research Center (ERC) and the Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center were recently awarded $1.5 million in funding from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.