Articles

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar and author Henry Louis Gates Jr. will present the 2026 Tresolini Lecture in Law at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, at the Zoellner Arts Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, will present “Finding Your Roots: Genealogy, Genetics, and African-American History.” The talk shares its title with his groundbreaking PBS genealogy television series, now in its 12th season.

Laurence J. Silberstein, professor emeritus of religion, culture and society and the founding Philip and Muriel Berman Professor of Jewish Studies at Lehigh University, died July 30, 2026, at the age of 89. An internationally respected scholar, Silberstein helped establish Jewish Studies at Lehigh and was known for his influential research on religion, philosophy and Israeli culture, as well as his decades of dedicated teaching and mentorship.

While headlines focus on social media toxicity and polarization, political scientist Marie Schenk is researching how apolitical online spaces—from asexual support groups to Reddit communities—foster belonging and civic engagement. By comparing supportive digital spaces with destructive ones like incel forums, Schenk's mixed-methods research examines how platform design and community dynamics help marginalized individuals build identity, find their political voice, and transition into active civic participants.

A groundbreaking study co-authored by Lehigh University assistant professor Patrick Cox and Georgetown University researchers reveals that true expertise isn't just about thinking faster—it is an entirely different brain state. By tracking participants through an unprecedented 30,000 trial protocol, researchers discovered that extensive practice physically rewires the brain, bypassing the conscious decision-making center to automate complex tasks.

Journalism professor Madhavi Reddi studies how second-generation South Asian Americans are reshaping narratives of identity and belonging through media, entertainment, and politics. Her research explores how authentic representation fosters community, challenges stereotypes, and gives new generations the opportunity to tell their own stories.

Unsolicited calls, door-to-door pitches, and mailers from retail electricity suppliers put Pennsylvania consumers in a tough spot — and new research suggests the decision to switch often isn't in their favor. A multidisciplinary team led by Samantha Fox, assistant professor of anthropology at Lehigh University, is studying the equity, justice, and efficiency effects of retail electric deregulation across the Lehigh Valley and several small Ohio cities. The project unites researchers from Lehigh's College of Arts and Sciences and Ohio State's John Glenn College of Public Affairs to examine how deregulated energy markets affect everyday consumers.

Jua Kim '27 collaborated with painter Deirdre Murphy and Audubon Center curator Heather Gibson Moqtaderi to create a catalog as striking as the exhibit itself.

How a Lehigh capstone course sent architecture students into a simulated humanitarian crisis—and sparked a student chapter built to carry the work forward

Elizabeth Erwin Ph.D. '25 has received national recognition for a dissertation that challenges one of horror cinema's most familiar tropes. The Popular Culture Association recently named Erwin the recipient of its Kathy Merlock Jackson Dissertation Award in Popular Culture Studies.

Small Cities Lab Researcher Isabelle O’Toole ’25 Documents Lehigh Valley Conference of Churches, Faith-Based Housing Efforts

Falato, along with his spouse, Pun Punyaratabandhu, has endowed the executive directorship of the Zoellner Arts Center.

Sculptor and professor Alina Tenser is named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow in recognition of their innovative and minimalist approach to art and performance.