Lehigh University

Lehigh University is a private research university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that provides a wide range of research and development services to the federal government through contract and grant awards. As a leading academic institution, Lehigh leverages expertise across disciplines like engineering, materials science, computer science, and biomedical research to deliver technical analysis, scientific advancements, and innovative solutions that support federal agency missions. The university has a long history of partnering with government entities to conduct basic and applied research aimed at addressing national priorities in areas such as defense, energy, health, and infrastructure resilience.

Through federal contract awards, Lehigh University has provided services such as developing multi-hazard fragility models for improved community resilience modeling of highway bridges for the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. The university has also conducted research on security and safety of bridges from human-made hazards for the Federal Highway Administration, and performed studies on snow melt detection algorithms to support Army operational mobility goals for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lehigh has received contracts from the Office of Naval Research to investigate nonlinear evolution of vortex pairs, develop deep learning-based predictive control systems for naval power and energy systems, and explore novel swarm behaviors through physical inter-robot connections. Additionally, the university has conducted seismic explosion studies for the Bureau of Arms Control Verification and Compliance and provided inventory management consulting services to the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons. Many of these contract awards did not have set-aside designations, indicating open competition. Lehigh has also served as a subcontractor on Department of Defense contracts related to research and development in physical, engineering, and life sciences.

Regarding federal grant awards, Lehigh University has received substantial funding across a diverse range of research areas. The National Science Foundation has provided grants for projects such as developing a framework for accountable machine learning on graphs, investigating causal explanations and computation to understand misplaced beliefs, and advancing imaging techniques to study cell responses to force. The Department of Defense has awarded grants for research on lightweight high entropy metallic alloy discovery and peridynamic operators for predicting material damage. The Department of Energy has funded cooperative agreements for developing integrated systems for real-time chemical analysis of waste streams. Lehigh has also received NSF funding to support student travel to academic conferences and to host seminars on stochastic processes. The university frequently collaborates with other institutions as both a prime recipient and sub-awardee on multi-institution grant projects spanning disciplines from engineering to social sciences.