The Office of the Dean
Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean
Robert A. Flowers II is the Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He previously served as Lehigh’s deputy provost for faculty affairs. He is also professor and Danser Distinguished Faculty Chair in the Department of Chemistry.
Flowers joined the Lehigh faculty in 2003, serving as chair of the chemistry department until 2015. In 2016, he was named deputy provost for faculty affairs at Lehigh, and officially took on that role in January 2017.
His research group is interested in the mechanistic analysis and development of electron transfer reagents in organic synthesis, synthetic applications of proton-coupled electron transfer, organometallic chemistry, calorimetric analysis of intermolecular interactions, and applications of back-scattering interferometry in molecular recognition.
In 2008, Flowers was awarded the Danser Distinguished Faculty Chair in Chemistry. The distinguished chair is given in honor of excellence in research, teaching and service.
Flowers has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers, a book, and five book chapters. He has given more than 100 invited U.S. and international lectures at universities and professional meetings.
Flowers taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at Lehigh. At Lehigh, he received the Eleanor and Joseph F. Libsch Research Award in 2012, the Dean’s Award for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity in 2016, and the Hillman Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising in 2017.
Flowers earned a B.S. in chemistry from East Stroudsburg University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Lehigh. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Kelly Austin-Noble
Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary Programs and International Initiatives
Kelly Austin-Noble is an associate professor of sociology. She received her PhD from North Carolina State University in 2012. Kelly has served as director of the Health, Medicine, and Society program and Global Studies program, and as a CAS representative to the Faculty Senate. In 2017 Kelly was awarded the Williamson Prize for innovative scholarship and the CAS Service Award. She has also been the recipient of the Frank Hook Assistant Professorship which recognized her outstanding work fostering personal interaction and mentoring relationships with students.Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies
R. Michael Burger is a professor of biological sciences. He earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin prior to postdoctoral fellowships at the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich. He is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
At Lehigh, Dr. Burger teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the behavioral neuroscience program. He served on the Department of Biological Sciences Graduate Committee for many years, has served on the Health Professions Advisory Committee, and served as Chair of the University Faculty Compensation Committee for three years.
Dr. Burger's research group investigates the neurobiological basis of hearing and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, The Hearing Health Foundation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He has active collaborations with laboratories at the University of Munich, the University of Oldenburg, NEOMED, and the National Institute for Deafness and other Communication Disorders. He serves as Associate Editor at Frontiers in Neural Circuits and The Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. He is a member of the Editorial Board at the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff
Diane Hyland is professor of psychology and formerly served as chair of the department. She also serves as director of the Center for Social Research. A member of the faculty for nearly 30 years, Diane has taught courses on topics including child development, adult development and aging, psychology of gender, and social research. In 1991, she received the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindbach Award for Distinguished Teaching by a senior member of the faculty and the Panhellenic Council Faculty Award in 1991.
Over the course of her career at Lehigh, Diane has actively published and frequently presented at professional conferences. Outside the classroom, Diane has been an energetic member of the university community, serving as a mentor to junior faculty and taking leadership roles on committees that provide the experience perfectly suited to her new role. She has played dynamic roles while serving on committees such as the Faculty Personnel Policy Review, University Institutional Review Board, University Task Force on Faculty Diversity, University Faculty Steering Committee, University Personnel Committee, and the University’s Presidential Search Committee. In late 2009, she was asked by President Gast to serve on the search committee for the newly established presidential chair in health in the social sciences or humanities.
Susan Szczepanski
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs
Susan Szczepanski is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University and held a post-doctoral position at M.I.T. before joining Lehigh. Her scholarly interests include geometric topology, singularity theory and, more recently, applications of topological concepts to the analysis of data.
