News and Spotlights

Antarctica is going green—and that is not a good thing. Rising temperatures affect the growth of moss on the continent, and these climatic changes are being studied by paleoecologist Zicheng Yu.
The role of women in early America is the focus of a recently published book by English professor Scott Gordon. In The Letters of Mary Penry: A Single Moravian Woman in Early America, Gordon provides unprecedented access to the intimate world of a Moravian single sister. This extensive collection...
While some people may choose to seek help for their mental illnesses, others can be substantially influenced by family and friends or coerced into care by court order. Understanding the variations through which people enter mental health care—by choice or coercion—will enable health care providers...
When Eccentricities of a Nightingale debuted on Broadway in 1976 after being tweaked for 25 years, Tennessee Williams brought to the stage a story about outcasts which was seen as an amalgam of anguish and poetry. Costume designer Erica Hoelscher created a languid and reserved atmosphere of the...
Bill Warfield’s latest album release, For Lew, is personal. Warfield, professor of music, released an anthology of works by his Bill Warfield Big Band from four album releases of 1990 to 2014; two tracks are previously unreleased. This collection of jazz is a tribute to one of New York City’s great...
A whirring, white drone hovered over Bethlehem City Hall plaza on a gray Monday in April, its low buzz audible as Professor Anthony Viscardi explained the appeal of a proposed pedestrian bridge linking the city’s north and south sides.
Vials of fruit flies line the shelves of neuroscientist Daniel Babcock’s lab on the second floor of Iacocca Hall. Here, where fruit flies number into the tens of thousands, if not millions, Babcock and his students are creating models of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’...
Jerome Licini has taught introductory physics at Lehigh for 31 years, perfecting his craft and continually finding ways to help his students in any way he can. Now Licini is expanding his reach beyond the Lehigh campus by developing a full-fledged program in physics education research. Licini...
During the 1980s and 1990s, archaeology went through a transitional period where researchers began to wonder how their presence affected the local people through the work they were conducting. In her forthcoming book, archeologist Allison Mickel examines the history of archaeology, how it has been...
Medicine is commonly understood through the metaphor of war, as in “the war on cancer” or “the battle against Ebola.” This military metaphor is so embedded in the dialogues of medicine that we do not think twice about using this structure or about its bioethical implications, much less its origins...
Urban air pollution is a growing problem. The commercial and residential building sector accounts for 39 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States per year, more than any other sector, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Air remediation efforts have mostly been...
Short-term medical missions (STMMs) have been described variously as volunteer missions, internships, global health education and medical brigades, and in the last two decades there has been a surge in them. 
Chemistry professor Xiaoji Xu's new technique could help researchers characterize how the electrical field is distributed around a nanostructure like graphene.
In a new paper, Arman Grigoryan, international relations faculty at Lehigh University, ascribes post-Soviet Armenia’s failure to transition to democracy, despite early promise, to the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabagh and the political processes it set in motion .
As the world awaits the next steps after Armenia’s recent pro-democracy revolution—which toppled its authoritarian leader Serzh Sarksyan leading to an upcoming parliamentary election May 1st—it seems an opportune time to ask: why did Armenia fail in its transition to democracy after...
In March of this year, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee signed the Washington Voting Rights Act into law. The state’s Voting Rights Act says that a jurisdiction is in violation of the law “…where there is a significant risk members of a protected class do not have an equal opportunity to elect...
Arnold H. Kritz is remembered as someone who brought out the best in his students and his collaborators.
“Sketchlehem” is a word commonly used by Lehigh students to describe  Bethlehem’ South Side community. It is a combination of the words “sketchy” and “Bethlehem”. There has consistently been turmoil between Lehigh students and the surrounding community. Journalism and Africana studies major Ashley...
For a long time, hybridization—when distinct species mate and produce offspring—was thought to be a mistake. Yet, advancements in genomic testing tools have revealed naturally occurring hybridization as a fairly common phenomenon—with a role in natural selection, in some cases.  
Political historian, journalist, elections analyst and National Review contributor Jay Cost delivered this year’s Tresolini Lecture earlier this month, regaling his audience with an engaging analysis of the early days of the Republic. In a talk titled “James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the...

Pages