Guest Speaker Prof. Jagannathan (Jag) Sankar White House Millennium Researcher and University Distinguished Professor North Carolina A&T State University

On October 3rd and 4th, 2024, Lehigh’s Institute for Functional Materials and Devices (I-FMD) was pleased to host Dr. Jagannathan “Jag” Sankar ‘83G, Distinguished University Professor and White House Millennium Researcher at North Carolina A&T University (NC A&T). Throughout his long and distinguished career, Dr. Sankar has led multiple large Center-level research efforts including the NSF Engineering Research Center for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials and the Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures. In addition to his Center leadership, Dr. Sankar is also a prolific researcher with over 400 published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scientific papers. As a principal investigator (PI) he has also generated more than $70 million of competitive research funding for NC A&T, and presented more than 60 plenary/keynote addresses at major research conferences.

As part of his visit, Dr. Sankar presented a seminar titled “Insights on Visioning Multi-Institutional, Multi-PI Interdisciplinary Convergent Mega Center for the National Needs,” to Lehigh administrative leadership, faculty, Institute staff, and graduate students. During this presentation, he highlighted the opportunities and challenges of building large interdisciplinary collaborative research efforts, informed by the vast experiences he has gained throughout his career. Dr. Sankar emphasized the importance of a revolutionary vision for such centers, and the key requirement of strong institutional support and buy-in to provide the necessary infrastructure and staffing resources to be successful in leading these efforts. Dr. Sankar also reflected fondly on his time as a graduate student at Lehigh and recalled how the education and training he received at Lehigh has been fundamental to his success as both a researcher and center leader.

During his two-day visit, Dr. Sankar also had the opportunity to meet with Lehigh university leadership including Provost Nathan Urban, Vice Provost for Research Anand Jagota, Associate Vice Provost for Research Dominic Packer, as well as leadership in the P.C. Rossin College including Dean Steve DeWeerth, and Senior Associate Dean for Research John Coulter. Dr. Sankar also met with the leadership teams of Lehigh’s three Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, and Deputy Vice President for Equity and Community Henry Odi. Throughout these visits, Dr. Sankar highlighted the opportunities for Lehigh and NC A&T to build on current collaborations between faculty already being supported by I-FMD to work with NC A&T researchers, and to build the groundwork for pursuing larger Center-level efforts combining Lehigh’s and NC A&T research and educational areas of strength.

I-FMD thanks Dr. Sankar for taking the time to return to Lehigh and provide his valuable insights on future research directions, and we look forward to continuing to build a strong collaborative relationship with him and his colleagues at NC A&T.