Alice P. Gast is the President of Lehigh University Alice P. Gast, a world renowned scholar, researcher, and academic leader, became the 13th president of Lehigh University on August 1, 2006. Before going to Lehigh, Dr. Gast served as the vice president for research and associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was also the Robert T. Haslam chair in chemical engineering. Prior to joining MIT in 2001, she spent 16 years as a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University and at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. Gast earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Rosalind H. Williams the Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of Writing Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society.