What are Mountaintop Projects?
Mountaintop projects are interdisciplinary deep dives where faculty, students, and external partners come together and take new intellectual, creative, and/or artistic pathways that lead to transformative new innovations, new expressions, and new questions. We expect students to take radical ownership in their projects, and envision faculty mentors as partners and co-creators striving to propel their projects forward on the journey towards tangible, sustainable impact: impact which builds the skillsets, mindsets, and portfolios of pioneers and change-makers in a rapidly changing world.
2023 Mountaintop Summer Experience Students
2023 Mountaintop Summer Experience Projects
Other 2023 Mountaintop Projects (for more info, visit the Impact Fellowship web pages)
1. AI Strengthening Healthcare Access (AISHA)
Khanjan Mehta, Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry
2. Air Quality in Almaty
Prof. Dinissa Duvanova, International Relations
3. Arts & Impact in the Bay Area
Prof. Melpomene Katakalos, Theatre, and Dr. Bill Whitney
4. Beyond Bars
Dr. Bill Whitney
5. Echo Hawks
Dr. Nathan Urban, Provost
6. Flying Swarms
Prof. David Saldana, Computer Science and Engineering
7. Food Security for Migrant Workers
Prof. Joseph Menicucci, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
8. Lehigh RiVR
Prof. Al Bodzin, Instructional Technology, et al
9. Lehigh Valley Cultural Entrepreneurs
Prof. Antigoni Papadimitriou, Management
10. Maternal Health and Cervical Cancer Innovations
Khanjan Mehta, Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry
11. Modular, Small-Scale Desalination Plants
Dr. Carlos Romero, Energy Research Center
12. Mothers of Sierra Leone
Prof. Michael Kramp, English, and Prof. Fathima Wakeel, Community Health
13. Newtrition
Prof. Lori Herz, Bioengineering
14. Open Doors to the Arts
Prof. Julie Fogt, College of Education, and Dr. Sara Heintzelman
15. PlasTech Ventures
Prof. Ganesh Balasubramanian, Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
16. Save Tuba
Khanjan Mehta, Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry
17. Sickle Cell Diagnostic Device
Prof. Xuanhong Cheng, Bioengineering / Materials Science
18. Southside Permaculture Park
Prof. David Casagrande, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Prof. Al Wurth, PoliSci
19. ThermoSolar
Dr. Carlos Romero, Energy Research Center
20. Zero Hunger College
Khanjan Mehta, Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry
For Students
The Mountaintop Summer Experience (MTSE) runs for 10 weeks (2023 program dates are June 5-August 11). At this time, the program is in-person for all students – no virtual participation will be part of the program this summer. Some Associates may be able to work remotely with program leader and faculty project mentor approval. All project teams will have a “home” work space in Building C, although we understand that some teams will have to conduct some or most of their work at other locations (on campus or in the surrounding community).
Mountaintop Fellows are expected to continue working on their projects in the Fall 2023 semester through the CINQ 389 course. Enrollment information will be provided to these students at a later time. CINQ 389 is a variable-credit course, but we have a strong preference for 2 or 3 credits of enrollment.
Students selected as Mountaintop Fellows are paid a stipend of $5,000 for undergraduates, or $6,000 for graduate students, for the summer. These stipends are paid in five biweekly installments beginning mid-June and ending mid-August. Projects typically have two, or at most three, Fellows. Fellows make a full-time commitment to their projects for the 10 weeks of the program, and are not allowed to take summer courses or have jobs, internships, or vacations that would substantially take them away from their project work. Fellows are also expected to continue working on their projects through the Fall 2022 semester (and possibly beyond) by enrolling in the CINQ 389 course. Fellows receive lunch in Building C each weekday that Mountaintop is in operation, and are expected to be in attendance at all relevant presentations, workshops, meetings with Innovators in Residence, and other program opportunities, throughout the summer.
Mountaintop Associates are not paid a stipend, and make a part-time commitment (typically 10 hours per week) to their project. Associates receive lunch in Building C each weekly that Mountaintop is in operation, and are invited and strongly encouraged to attend all relevant presentations, workshops, meetings with Innovators in Residence, and other program opportunities, throughout the summer. Associates are strongly encouraged to continue working on their project through the CINQ 389 course in the Fall 2022 semester and beyond. Associates who have high financial need may inquire about financial assistance which may be available.
Lead faculty project mentors can utilize up to $500 in project expenses. These funds are not tracked by the Office of Creative Inquiry, and faculty may use them as they choose as long as they are relevant to the project. However, the intention of these funds is to help disseminate the work of the project (through conference registration fees and the like) and/or to supplement (or in some cases support) project expense budgets. If students incur project expenses during the summer, there is a system for providing reimbursement from project accounts, which will be handled by program leadership. **NOTE: These funds are subject to adjustment or change if unexpected budgetary constraints arise**
Additional project expense budgets beyond the allocated $500 (for needed equipment, supplies, reagents, resources, etc.) will be considered as requested.
Mountaintop 2023 applications will open in late February/early March and typically there is a 3-week open application period. The application link will be posted here (and on the top of the Mountaintop home page) once applications have “gone live.”
The application form will include a list of available projects, and students can “rank” their top three project choices. After the application period closes, faculty mentors will be given applications for those students who indicated an interest in their project and will typically contact those students for a brief interview. The Office of Creative Inquiry does not assign students to specific projects; those decisions are entirely at the discretion of the faculty lead mentor(s).
Demonstrating a high work ethic, dedication to and support for the goals of the project, and strong collaboration skills are usually more important selection criteria than specific technical knowledge or skill sets, although those can be noted on applications as well. Fellows usually require a broader set of skills and mindsets, whereas Associates may be assigned to specific parts of the project, so technical skills may become important in those cases.
Faculty mentors will inform the Office of Creative Inquiry of their selections within two weeks after applications close, and students will be informed in early April.
Faculty mentors are welcomed and encouraged to recruit students to their own projects. Those students will need to fill out an application form to the program, but can be automatically accepted based on faculty recommendation / request.
While the primary focus of the summer will be making progress on projects and taking a deep dive of exploration and achieving deliverables, MTSE offers ongoing developmental, informational, and practical opportunities to students. In addition, we will invite an array of subject matter experts, working professionals, and potential partners as “Innovators in Residence,” many of whom will offer broad-topic master classes, all of whom will meet with selected individual project teams who might benefit from their expertise. Fellows are required to attend sessions with Innovators in Residence if invited; Associates are expected to attend unless they have a compelling conflict.
At regular intervals, student teams will present their work to one another and/or to public audiences. Toward the end of the summer, we will likely be hosting a Summer Expo in Building C, where projects will be presented in poster format (unless other formats are negotiated) alongside projects from the STEM-SI summer program and various REUs.
The Mountaintop Summer Experience does not arrange student housing. Students are on their own to arrange their housing situation, whether on-campus or off-campus, for the summer.
For Faculty
Proposals for 2023 Mountaintop Summer Experience projects must be submitted by the faculty member who will serve as lead mentor for the project. Staff members may submit proposals with approval from their department or stem leadership. Submit proposals in a PDF document, attached to an email sent to mountaintop@lehigh.edu, with the subject line "Summer 2023 Proposal: <Project Title>."
Proposals should not exceed two (2) pages in length and should include the following:
DEMOGRAPHICS:
• Project title (will be used in program communications and marketing materials)
• Name of lead faculty mentor (also the primary faculty contact)
• Names of partnering faculty/other mentors if applicable
• Names of students already committed to the project, if any
• Types of students who would be ideal for this project…majors, skill sets, competencies, interests, etc.
• Ideal location for conducting your work…Building C, or another on-campus location?
• Special equipment or setup you anticipate needing for your project
DREAM and IMPACT:
• What is the dream?
• How will you pursue this dream?
• What is the topic/question/possibility/mode of inquiry you will employ?
• What is the project’s potential for impact? What might your impact look like? What disciplines, fields, or spheres will your work influence?
• How is this project collaborative, and what communities of practice would be involved in seeing it through, evaluating its progress, assessing its importance?
PROJECT SCOPE:
• What are you inspired by, what are you building on, and how are you standing on the shoulders of giants?
• What is the new intellectual/creative pathway you are taking?
• Why is this a game-changer?
• Who cares and why? What communities of practice are you contributing to, and calibrating against?
Faculty project mentors at Mountaintop are not expected to “teach” in the normal sense. Students drive the work and can learn what they need in a just-in-time manner. Faculty mentors, along with program leadership, will help connect students with the resources that they need to get up to speed in order to make appropriate progress on their project. In Creative Inquiry, students take “radical ownership” of their projects and are expected to make substantive intellectual contributions that could lead to co-authorship on publishable research articles, presentations at professional conferences, patent applications, etc.
The most successful MTSE and D4I students are those who demonstrate self-efficacy, an execution-focused mindset, strong teamwork skills, openness to learning new skill sets and mindsets, and a comfort level with open-ended questions and problems. The primary roles of the faculty mentor are to provide advice, resources, and guidance syncing up with the team on a regular basis (at least weekly) to monitor progress.
Each project is given a baseline budget of $500 for summer expenses. Expenditure of these funds should be done through program leadership. If additional project budget funding is needed, a request should be made to program leadership as soon as possible. Additional funds are not guaranteed.
Accepted projects are given two Mountaintop Fellow spots (which are compensated at $5K for undergraduates and $6K for graduate students). Faculty can petition for additional Fellows, although they are not guaranteed and will be granted based on budgetary availability.
Faculty mentors select their own teams based on applications received. Students who apply are given the opportunity to indicate their top three (3) project choices, and faculty mentors will receive the applicants who indicated an interest in their projects specifically.
*Projects are listed in alphabetical order.
GSIF/LVSIF/CSIF projects can be found on their respective pages; these projects are part of one of the Impact Fellowship programs in addition to participating the mountaintop summer program. For more information see: go.lehigh.edu/gsif | go.lehigh.edu/lvsif | go.lehigh.edu/csif.
D4I projects can be found on the D4I page, although they also partcipate in the Mountaintop Summer Project. For more information see: go.lehigh.edu/d4i
1. Air Quality Initiatives in Almaty
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Dinissa Duvanova (International Relations)
2. Autonomous Driving for Underwater Drones
Faculty Mentor: Rosa Zheng (Electrical & Computer Engineering)
3. Beyond Bars
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bill Whitney (Office of Creative Inquiry)
4. Creative Solutions to Improving Quality of Life through the Clean and Safe Neighborhoods Initiative
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Jennifer Swann (Biological Sciences)
5. Design of Lehigh-Based interface with Web3.0
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
6. Diagnosing Autism in Sierra Leone
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Kristi Morin (Special Education)
7. Echo Hawks
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nathan Urban (Academic Affairs); Prof. Khanjan Mehta (Creative Inquiry)
8. Environmental Pollution and Asthma Effects
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Hyunok Choi (College of Health)
9. Factor Models and Portfolio Management
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
10. Financial Equation and Machine Learning
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
11. Flying Swarms: Designing, Constructing, and Programming Autonomous Robotic Blimps
Faculty Mentor: Prof. David Saldaña (Computer Science and Engineering)
12. Food Carbon and Water Footprint
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Don Morris (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
13. Food Products to Fight Malnutrition and Stunting in Sierra Leone
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Lori Herz (Bioengineering)
14. Interpretability of a supervised learning-based trading strategy
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
15. Lehigh Night Hawks
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Jennifer Swann (Biological Sciences); Chief Jason Schiffer (LUPD)
16. Lehigh RiVR Immersive Learning
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Al Bodzin, (College of Education); Prof. David Anastasio (Earth and Environmental Sciences); Prof. Tom Hammond, (College of Education)
17. Machine Learning for Advanced Micro-Fabrication and Cell Manipulation
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Yaling Liu (Bioengineering / Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics)
18. MindFull
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Khanjan Mehta (Creative Inquiry)
19. NeuroSalon
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Julie Miwa (Biological Sciences)
20. PA 100 Index of Companies
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
21. Parent-Adolescent Discussions about Race and Racism
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Debbie Laible (Psychology)
22. Pennsylvania Asthma Syndromic Surveillance
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Hyunok Choi (College of Health)
23. PlasTech Campus – Decontaminating Lehigh’s Recycling stream
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Ganesh Balasubramanian (Mechanical Engineering); Brian Slocum (Wilbur Powerhouse Design Labs)
24. PlasTech Ventures – Empowering Women by Recycling Plastic to Produce High Value Products
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Ganesh Balasubramanian (Mechanical Engineering); Brian Slocum (Wilbur Powerhouse Design Labs)
25. Practical Training and Research in Computer-Aided Drug Discovery
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Wonpil Im (Bioengineering)
26. Regional LGBTQ Archives
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Mary Foltz (English)
27. Reinforcement Learning and Interpretability
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Patrick Zoro (Finance)
28. Replacing Independent Directors
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Jesus Salas (Finance)
29. Research Integrity in Kazakhstan
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Bill Gaudelli, Dean (College of Education); Prof. Dinissa Duvanova (International Relations); Prof. Khanjan Mehta (Creative Inquiry)
30. Save Tuba
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Khanjan Mehta (Creative Inquiry)
31. Self-Driving Cars in Urban Environments with Traffic
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Cristian Vasile (Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics)
32. SicklED – Sickle Cell Anemia Diagnostic Device
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Xuanhong Cheng (Bioengineering)
33. Southside Permaculture Park
Faculty Mentors: Prof. David Casagrande (Sociology & Anthropology / Environmental Initiative); Prof. Al Wurth (Political Science)
34. STEM Visualizations
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Srinivas Rangarajan (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
35. Ukweli Test Strips
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Khanjan Mehta (Creative Inquiry)
36. Zero Hunger College
Faculty Mentors: Prof. Ganesh Balasubramanian (Mechanical Engineering); Dr. Elmer Soriano (Civika Asian Development Academy)
*Projects are listed in alphabetical order.
1. American Indian Community Health and Education Projects through the Institute for Indigenous Studies
Faculty Mentors: Sean Daley and Christine Daley (College of Health)
2. Autonomous Driving for Underwater Drones
Faculty Mentor: Rosa Zheng (Electrical & Computer Engineering)
3. Environmental Pollution and Asthma in Pennsylvania
Faculty Mentor: Hyunok Choi (College of Health)
4. How White Mothers Discuss Peer Victimization with Young Children
Faculty Mentor: Debbie Laible (Psychology)
5. Mathematical Modeling and Syndromic Surveillance of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania
Faculty Mentor: Thomas McAndrew (College of Health)
6. NeuroSalon
Faculty Mentor: Julie Miwa, Biological Sciences
7. Renewable Energy in Ghana
Faculty Mentor: Steven McIntosh (Chemical Engineering)
8. Rewriting the Script 3.0: Designing Virtual Racial Embodiment Interactions to Transform U.S. Race Relations
Faculty Mentor: Valerie Jones Taylor (Psychology)
9. Self-Driving Cars in Urban Environments with Traffic
Faculty Mentor: Cristian Ioan Vasile (Mechanical Engineering)
10. Southside Permaculture Park
Faculty Mentors: David Casagrande (Earth & Environmental Sciences), Al Wurth (Political Science)
11. STEM Visualizations
Faculty Mentor: Srinivas Rangarajan (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
12. Superbugs, COVID-19, and the Media
Faculty Mentors: Sharon Friedman (Journalism & Communications), Amanda Greene (Humanities Lab)