Move-In Underway at Health, Science & Technology Building

The new Health, Science and Technology building (HST) has been bustling with activity this week as faculty and staff start moving in.

The move includes relocating 32 faculty members and 15 labs from existing areas on campus, including the College of Health (which opened in Fall 2020), the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Labs came to life as students helped professors unload boxes of pipettes and beakers, and workers calibrated sensitive equipment like spectrometers, microscopes and rheometers.

“We are one of the first labs to move in, so it’s kind of a blank slate. There’s lots of boxes and lots of chaos, but it’s exciting,” said Angela Brown, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering who had several Ph.D. students helping her move her lab into the second level of HST.

“It’s overall very spacious. I like the open lab setting, but I won’t get distracted even with glass windows everywhere because it’s sound proof,” said one of Brown’s students, Meishan Wu, who is in her third year of a Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering.

“In individual labs, we weren’t always communicating with others, but I think there will be a lot of collaboration here,” she said.

HST is a new type of space for Brown, her students and colleagues. With a focus on interdisciplinary research, the building features open-concept labs, integrated work spaces, and shared meeting rooms instead of formal classrooms— all designed to encourage collaboration across disciplines. It’s also home to the College of Health.

Designed by HGA, a Boston-based architecture firm, the 200,000-square-foot building is the largest ever constructed on the Asa Packer campus. It has been under construction for the past two-and-a-half years and will soon open its doors, ushering in an expanded era of interdisciplinary research at Lehigh.

“It’s a long-time coming,” said Joe Klocek ‘98, a project manager at Lehigh. Lehigh broke ground on HST in October 2019.

As for the process of moving labs, every lab is different and requires careful consideration when moving sensitive chemicals and equipment, Klocek said. There were dozens of individuals from specialty groups who assisted with the move, such as manufacturers from scientific companies who had to disassemble and reassemble microscopes and other sensitive equipment, Klocek said. Representatives from companies as far away as Germany and California assisted with moving equipment.