Lehigh University is joining the historic delegation of American universities, sponsored by the Institute for International Education and the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, to establish new partnerships with Greek public universities.
You can read more about this visit here.
About Lehigh University
Founded in 1865 and now recognized among the premier research universities in the United States, Lehigh University offers a rigorous academic experience for more than 7,000 students. Lehigh is a private university with five colleges: The College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the College of Education, the College of Health, and the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Lehigh is consistently ranked by national publications as among the top 50-51 universities in the U.S., putting it in the top 1% of the 5,000+ colleges and universities in the United States. Among its key features are its innovative and rigorous academic programs, its vibrant and diverse campus community, and its commitment to strengthening its recognition as a premier teaching and research institution worldwide.
Lehigh University is located in the Lehigh Valley, which includes Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, and is the third largest metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. Lehigh is conveniently located within one hour of Philadelphia and 1 ½ hours of New York City.
Global Lehigh
Since its founding, Lehigh University has had ties to the world beyond its campus. In 1868, just three years after its founding, Lehigh admitted its first international students. Today, Lehigh is home to more than 1,000 international students and 133 standing faculty and visiting scholars from 81 different countries. Approximately 40 percent of Lehigh students have international experiences before they graduate. And one-third of standing Lehigh faculty have earned degrees from universities overseas. The university sponsors several distinctive international programs:
- Center for Global Citizenship and the Global Citizenship Program
- Creative Inquiry Mountaintop Initiatives and the Global Social Impact Fellows
- Global Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives
- Iacocca Institute
- Iacocca International Internship Program
- International Center for Academic and Professional English
- United Nations Partnership
In 2021, Lehigh received the Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization, an honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that are making significant, well-planned, well-executed, and well-documented progress toward comprehensive internationalization—especially those using innovative and creative approaches.
"This is Global Lehigh" is our plan for comprehensive internationalization, where an international or intercultural dimension is infused in all aspects of teaching, research, and service.
Global Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives is the central point of contact and coordination for international activities undertaken by Lehigh’s colleges and units, and for external institutions that want to engage with Lehigh University.
Lehigh Collaborations in Greece
Lehigh is seeking academic collaborations that advance scholarship in the following areas:
| people in Social Contexts | Human Health | Economic forces | Sustainability and climate change |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic psychological research with social and educational applications Community welfare Human rights Artistic expressions of individuals and groups Equity in education access Higher education leadership and internationalization | Basic science with implications in health Population growth and environment Urban planning and human health Environmental pollution and hazard risks to human health Nutrition access and human health Technologies for human health and healthcare equity | Capital markets and social justice Circular economics Supply chain transparency and traceability Sustainable distribution systems Diversity, equity and inclusion across the business and value chain | Clean and renewable energy distribution and management Materials for renewable energy Natural resource use Water conservation and treatment Sustainable buildings Sustainable communities |
Particular opportunities include:
- Joint summer courses in Greece
- Proposal for Summer Course in Biological Physics in Greece (pdf)
- Proposal for Summer Course in Developmental Psychology – Basic and Applied Methods (pdf)
- Programs for short-term study abroad in Greece or the U.S.
- Education and Applied Psychology Collaboration (pdf)
- COIL (collaborative online international learning) and virtual exchange
- English language preparation programs for staff or faculty (pdf)
- Dual degrees
- Research and internship opportunities with Greek universities and NGOs (pdf)
- Faculty-led programs and collaborative research projects
Contributing Lehigh leadership on collaboration in Greece
Cheryl Matherly
Dr. Cheryl Matherly is Vice President/Vice Provost for International Affairs. Dr. Cheryl Matherly is the vice president and vice provost for international affairs at Lehigh University. She serves as the university’s senior international officer and is charged with providing strategic leadership for its numerous international education programs. She is the past president of the Association for International Education Administrators, and was named Senior International Officer of the Year by the Institute of International Education in 2020. She is an inaugural member of the American Academy of International Education. Dr. Matherly has written extensively on the relationship between employability and education abroad. She is recognized for her leadership on issues related to international internships and experiential learning. She has an Ed.D. in education from the University of Houston.
Stacy Burger
Stacy Burger is the Director for Global Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives. She manages all of Lehigh University's international partnerships and international data including the Global Engagement Directory. Additionally, she oversees internationalization grants and opportunities for staff and faculty to engage globally. Burger has 15 years of experience in higher education; before that, she was a high school Spanish teacher. She has lived in Spain and Germany and has extensive experience traveling abroad with students in Western Europe and Southeast Asia. She received a bachelor's degree in Spanish and education from Ithaca College and her master’s of science degree in Instructional Technology from Lehigh University.
Ageliki Nicolopoulou
Ageliki Nicolopoulou is Professor of Psychology at Lehigh University. She was born and raised in Greece and came to the US for her education, receiving her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California/Berkeley. She has taught at the University of California/San Diego, Smith College, and (since 1996) Lehigh University. She is a sociocultural developmental psychologist whose research interests include the role of play and narrative in development, socialization, and education; the influence of the peer group and peer culture as social contexts for children's language, literacy, cognitive, and socio-emotional development; and recently Greek children’s developing beliefs about things they cannot see in collaboration with two Greek academics. (See ORCID for publications.) She has been involved with Lehigh’s Internationalization Initiatives for several years. With the Greek University system, she has served as an external member in several dissertation committees, faculty hires and promotion evaluations, and the evaluation of academic departments in several universities through the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency.
Dimitrios Vavylonis
Dimitrios Vavylonis studied Physics at the Univ. of Athens and received a Ph.D. in Physics at Columbia Univ. After military service in Greece, he worked as a postdoc at Columbia Chemical Engineering and Yale Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology departments. He joined Lehigh in 2006 where he was promoted to the rank of Professor. His group is funded by the National Institutes of Health to develop computational models in biophysics, with collaborators in Europe, Japan, and the US. He has published in Science, PNAS, PLOS Comp. Biol., PRL, and is an editorial board member of Biophys. J., Cytoskeleton, and Sci. Rep. He is Visiting Scholar at the Center for Computational Biology at the Flatiron Institute in NY and had visiting positions at the Univ. of Lausanne, AMOLF (Amsterdam) and Kyoto Univ. He participated in Lehigh’s Iacocca International Internship Program, helping establish a student exchange agreement between Nagoya Institute of Technology and Lehigh.
Additional faculty with research interests and activities in Greece
Michael Gusmano, Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Professor of Health Policy, College of Health
Miltiadis K. Hatalis, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science
Melpomene Katakalos, Associate Professor of Theatre, College of Arts and Sciences
Jackie Krasas, Professor of Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences
Panayiotis Diplas, P.C. Rossin Professor, Water Resources Engineering, P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science
Antigoni Papadimitriou, Teaching Assistant Professor, Management, College of Business
Frank Pazzaglia, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
David B. Small, Professor of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences
Todd Watkins, Professor of Economics and Executive Director of the Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise and Microfinance Program, College of Business