FROM THE NEST | SPRING 2025 | 17 Inc. With This 1 Move, Google May Have Solved a Huge AI Content Problem Lichao Sun, professor of computer science and engineering, and research colleagues developed a program called HarmonyCloak. The program adds data to music recordings to trick an AI algorithm into thinking it’s already heard the track, which deters the algorithm from incorporating the music into its training data. Business Insider ‘I Just Can’t’: Why So Many Consumers Are Sick and Tired of Online Shopping Jessecae Marsh, professor of psychology, shares why online shopping has become overwhelming with the increasing number of options. “Amazon’s doing what we think the American dream is, which is, have all the choice in the world,” she said. “But choice can be paralyzing.” NPR Recipient of Pig Kidney Transplant Reaches a Milestone Pig organ transplants performed so far, outside of rigorous clinical trials, provide limited evidence, NPR writes. “If this person lives for a good long time, whatever that means—six months, a year, longer—with a pig kidney, that alone is not going to allow us to conclude that this is a solution to the organ shortage,” said Michael Gusmano, professor of health policy. Lehigh Faculty in the Media Lehigh has long been recognized as a university that conducts significant research. Now it is among the top cohort of research institutions—a prestigious honor held by a select few of the nation’s colleges and universities. Attaining R1 status, the highest level of research activity in the Carnegie Classification system, is a milestone that means a university conducts a “very high volume of research” and awards a large number of research doctorates, according to Carnegie. Lehigh is the only university in the Lehigh Valley to have the designation and one of seven in the state. It will attract and retain top faculty, assist in securing funding for academic research and boost the cutting-edge research that attracts doctorate-level students. It also will benefit the community as Lehigh continues to educate a highly skilled workforce. Each year, R1 institutions spend at least $50 million on research and development and produce at least 70 research doctorates. Lehigh was previously an R2, which classifies universities spending at least $5 million on research and development and producing at least 20 doctorates per year. In 2023, the most recent data available, Lehigh awarded 94 doctorates. That same year, the university spent $56.3 million on research, up from $41.2 million in 2021. One of the goals of Lehigh’s strategic plan, Inspiring the Future Makers, is to double research activity over the next 10 years. “We’ve hit a major milestone. It’s not the end of the road, but it’s a major milestone along the way, and it’s something we should be proud of, because it’s not easy to do,” said Dominic Packer, professor and associate provost for research. Since 2024, three interdisciplinary University Research Centers were established, tackling issues including preparing for and recovering from natural disasters and helping persons with disabilities navigate their environment. Lehigh also was awarded a $6 million National Science Foundation grant to speed up the translation of research into actual use. Lehigh officials plan to double the number of faculty associated with those research centers and say the designation will increase the number of postdoctoral researchers. “It’s really a signal to the world that we are a serious research institution operating at the very highest level,” Packer said.—Christina Tatu RESEARCH Lehigh Named Top-Tier Research School R1 status recognizes universities with the highest level of research activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. “LEHIGH IS KNOWN FOR RESEARCH THAT PUSHES THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION. THAT WORK ALIGNS WITH THE HIGHEST-LEVEL CLASSIFICATION—R1.” —President Joseph J. Helble ’82 CHRISTA NEU
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