Lehigh Engineering faculty promotions

The following faculty members of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science were recently promoted for their achievements in engineering education and research.

~~Promoted to Full Professor~~

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John DuPont


John DuPont
Materials Science and Engineering
B.S., Metallurgical Engineering, Ohio State University
Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, Lehigh University


John DuPont joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2002. His research and teaching interests cover processing-microstructure-property relations in solidification and joining of materials, Laser Engineered Net Shaping, and alloy development. His research results have been published in over 170 technical articles. He’s received a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. He also received the NSF Presidential Award, which is the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists and engineers.


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Joachim Grenestedt


Joachim Grenestedt
Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
M.Sc. Engineering Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Ph.D. Lightweight Structures, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Joachim Grenestedt joined Lehigh in 2000 and founded its Composites Lab. Grenestedt and his students are engaged in research that spans the whole range of design, analysis, optimization, manufacturing and mechanical testing of carbon and glass fiber composite structures. Grenestedt is faculty advisor for the Formula SAE Team, which builds and competes with an open-wheel racecar, naturally made of carbon fiber. He also founded the Lehigh Micro Aerial Vehicle Team, which builds and competes with small surveillance aircraft.


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Derick Brown


Derick Brown
Civil and Environmental Engineering
B.S. Aerospace Engineering, Boston University
Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

Derick Brown received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to examine the effects of surfaces on the metabolic activity of bacteria. He also studies the transport of microorganisms through the subsurface and microbial kinetics in environmental systems. Brown has developed a number of new courses for the Environmental Engineering program, is the advisor for Environmental Engineering students, and is involved with Lehigh’s Environmental Initiative and its Bioengineering program.


~~Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure~~

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Jeff Heflin


Jeff Heflin
Computer Science and Engineering
B.S., Computer Science, College of William and Mary
Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Maryland

Jeff Heflin's research interests include establishing semantic interoperability between heterogeneous information systems, scalable ontology reasoning, and developing formal theories of distributed ontology systems. He is one of the pioneers of Semantic Web research and wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on the subject. He has been involved in the design of many important Semantic Web languages, including the international standard OWL. He is an NSF CAREER award recipient and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Web Semantics.


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Héctor Muñoz-Avila


Héctor Muñoz-Avila
Computer Science and Engineering
B.S., Computer Science, Andes University (Colombia)
Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Kaiserslautern (Germany)

Muñoz-Avila has done extensive research on case-based reasoning, planning, and machine learning, having written more than 10 journal papers and 40 refereed conference/workshop papers on the subject. He is also interested in advancing game artificial intelliegence (AI), and is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.


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Yunfeng Zhang


Yunfeng Zhang
Civil and Environmental Engineering
B.S., Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai
Ph.D., Applied Mechanics & Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology

Yunfeng Zhang has extensive research experience in the emerging engineering field of “smart structures,” focusing on integrating sensor technology, structural control and health monitoring to create high-performance next-generation structural systems. Zhang, an NSF CAREER Award recipient, plays an active role in the field of smart structures, with more than forty publications in professional journals and major conference proceedings. Recently, Zhang has been participating in a project to perform structural health monitoring of a long-span cable-stayed bridge in China that was damaged during construction.