Alice P. Gast

Alice P. Gast is the thirteenth president of Lehigh University. Prior to her appointment at Lehigh, she served as Vice President for Research and Associate Provost and Robert T. Haslam Chair in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University.

She is the co-author of Physical Chemistry of Surfaces, a classic textbook on colloid and surface phenomena, and author and co-author on a number of scientific publications. Dr. Gast has presented named lectures at several of the nation's leading research institutions and has been a presenter and panelist at a number of international meetings and conferences.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Gast was named one of the top 100 "Modern Era" engineers in the country, under the category of "Leadership" by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Dr. Gast has served on a number of national advisory committees and boards, including the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute Board of Directors. She currently serves on the Academic Research Council for the Singapore Ministry of Education, the National Research Council Committee for Science, Technology, and the Law, and the Board of Trustees of St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network in Bethlehem PA. She is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Physical Society.

She earned her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Southern California in 1980 and her master's and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University in 1981 and 1984. She spent a postdoctoral year as a NATO fellow at the École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in Paris.