Research Facility
Research Overview, Research That Matters: Creating Knowledge that Benefits Society and the World

The news headlines remind us daily that this is a critical time in our history. The quality and quantity of natural resources-oceans, forests, freshwater, air-are stressed by the increasing demands of human activity. At the same time, while the U.S. population faces an obesity epidemic, nearly a billion people do not have enough food to eat and more than a billion do not have access to clean water.

The challenges that we face are formidable, but the good news is that Lehigh professors and students are tackling these 21st century challenges head-on.

That's evident in the type of research projects that are ongoing at Lehigh-research to bring clean drinking water to remote parts of the world that resulted in Lehigh students traveling to India, research to treat preschool ADHD without drugs, research using computer models to shed important light on heart disease, research into alternate forms of energy, research to develop a new class of antidepressants for the treatment of disorders of stress, mood, and behavior, and research to find the flaws and correct them in current computer voting machines to protect future U.S. elections-to name a few.

As a world-class research university, Lehigh is committed to performing research that matters. We pursue knowledge for the benefit of society. At Lehigh, research provides the training ground for tomorrow's leaders. We welcome you to this Web site, and encourage you to explore its pages and to learn more about the difference-making research being performed at Lehigh.

 

 

 

faculty profile

SHIN-YI CHOU, Ph.D.
SHIN-YI CHOU, Ph.D.

Associate professor, Economics
Ph.D.: Economics, Duke University, 1986
Undergraduate: National Taiwan University

Shin-Yi Chou recently co-authored the largest study of its kind linking fast-food ads during children's shows to our nation's childhood obesity epidemic. Chou found that a ban on fast-food television advertisements during children's programming would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3-11 by 18 percent, while also lowering the number of overweight adolescents ages 12-18 by 14 percent.

The authors also question whether such a high degree of government involvement-and the costs of implementing such policies-is a practical option. Currently, Sweden, Norway and Finland are the only countries to have banned commercial sponsorship of children's programs.