President of Lehigh University Joseph Helble to Deliver Dartmouth Engineering Investiture Address

President of Lehigh University Joseph Helble

Named for the founding director and the first professor of engineering at Thayer, the Fletcher Award is given annually in recognition of distinguished scientific achievement and service in the highest tradition of Dartmouth Engineering.

Helble served as provost at Dartmouth from 2018–2021, overseeing all of Dartmouth's professional and graduate schools as well as major academic units, offices, centers, and institutes. He set the university's budget priorities and oversaw its annual budget process, developing financial plans, and coordinating support for Dartmouth's research infrastructure. Helble also served as a professor of engineering and played a critical role in guiding the campus community through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before becoming provost, Helble served for 13 years as dean of Thayer where he oversaw a record increase in the school's research funding, a near doubling of enrollment, an increase in tenure-track faculty, and the introduction of new majors and programs, including the PhD Innovation Program—the first of its kind in the nation to prepare engineering doctoral candidates for entrepreneurship. During his leadership, Thayer also experienced a significant increase in the number of women graduates and, in 2016, became the first national research university to award more bachelor's degrees in engineering to women than to men. His vision for a new facility integrating engineering and computer science ultimately led to the completion of The Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center (ECSC) which has transformed Dartmouth's West End into a campus hub for innovation.

Helble became president of Lehigh University in 2021. Under his leadership, Lehigh completed its first comprehensive strategic planning process in 15 years, deepening Lehigh’s commitment to a broadly interdisciplinary education that is inclusive of engineering and business. Over the first two years of implementation, Lehigh established three university-wide research centers, seen research support grow by more than 50%, been recognized as an R1 institution by the Carnegie Classification system, and launched an interdisciplinary exploratory first semester that allows students to draw from engineering, business, and the liberal arts in a structured, integrated program.

After graduating with highest honors from Lehigh in 1982, Helble earned his PhD in chemical engineering, with a minor in Spanish, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. He worked for several years in the private sector as a research scientist at Physical Sciences, Inc., during which time he also spent several months on leave as a science policy fellow with the US Environmental Protection Agency. Later, as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Revelle Fellow, he spent a year in Washington, DC, working on environmental and technology policy. Prior to arriving at Dartmouth, Helble served as professor and chair of chemical engineering at the University of Connecticut.