Lehigh’s Mountaintop Summer Experience began in 2013 to bring together faculty, students, and external partners conducting interdisciplinary deep dives on creative, innovative projects. The program is managed under Lehigh’s Office of Creative Inquiry, which focuses on impact-focused, outcomes-based experiential education through curricular and non-curricular programs.
Students involved in a Mountaintop project spend 10 weeks exploring a game-changing question/innovation, guided by the mentorship of at least one faculty member. The 2019 Mountaintop program supported 26 projects involving 70+ students and 30+ faculty from across Lehigh University. Several faculty from the Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure & Energy (I-CPIE) served as mentors to 2019 Mountaintop projects this year:
- David Anastasio, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Ganesh Balasubramanian, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
- Jonas Baltrusaitis, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Karen Beck Pooley, Professor of Political Science
- Paolo Bocchini, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- David Casagrande, Professor of Sociology/Anthropology
- Panos Diplas, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Steven McIntosh, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Wojciech Z. Misiolek, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
- Nader Motee, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
- Hector Munoz-Avila, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
- Dork Sahagian, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Mark Snyder, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Project topics ranged from mass incarceration, autonomous robots, VR modeling, solar energy, immersive VR, parklets, and plastics recycling to interracial interactions, river meandering, socioeconomics of Ebola, permaculture, and the energy-water nexus. Bill Whitney, Administrative Director of Creative Inquiry, notes that the multidisciplinary nature of Mountaintop projects provides a natural alignment with I-CPIE faculty: “Mentoring a Mountaintop project requires a commitment to both innovative pedagogy and impactful research, so it is a great opportunity for I-CPIE faculty to spin off their existing research or initiate previously unexplored inquiries.”