Matthew A. Melone Faculty Award

Award Overview

This prestigious award recognizes a full time College of Business faculty member who best embodies the legacy of Professor Matthew Melone. Professor Melone had a wonderful ability to build a bridge between his scholarship and teaching in the classroom that increased his students’ depth of understanding of the law.

“Matt loved the process of learning. He loved it when a student asked him a question and he didn’t know the answer. He loved to explore and understand both sides.” -Anthony Melone, brother of Matt Melone

Matt was dedicated to Lehigh, especially its students, and was always willing to serve for the good of the University.

In the spirit of Matt's dedication, starting in 2021, the Melone family endowed a yearly recognition of a Lehigh Business faculty member who best exemplifies the traits Matt so generously shared: rigorous pedagogy coupled with devotion to student learning. “He would have liked this,” said Anthony. It was determined that the recipient should demonstrate sustained excellence in research, teaching, and service to Lehigh.

About Matt

Matthew Melone, who died at age 61 in July 2020, was already a certified public accountant and a tax attorney when he joined the faculty of the College of Business in 1993. He was a recipient of the Class of '61 Professorship, which honors Lehigh faculty for outstanding contributions to teaching, scholarship and service. In 2020, he received the MS in Management Teacher of Excellence Award as voted by the students.

“My brother was a tough teacher,” said Anthony, “but despite that his students appreciated him.” Anthony said Matt’s wife, Annamarie, found notes from Matt’s students. “They would say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t do well in your class, but I loved it,’” shared Anthony. “Matt was very humble,” said Anthony, “but he was proud of how his students reacted to his class."

To learn more about Matt, please visit this article. To learn more about this award, please see the original announcement.

Nomination Criteria

The recipient will be selected based on the following criteria evaluated over the last three years:

• Excellent teaching
• Research benefiting industry or the academy
• Substantial service to college and/or university

All current, full-time College of Business faculty members are eligible to receive nominations for this award as long as they meet the criteria of excellence in research, teaching, and service (visiting faculty, part-time faculty and retired/emeriti faculty are not eligible). An individual who has won the Matthew A. Melone Faculty Award in the previous five years is not eligible to win the award. Self-nominations are not accepted.

Nomination Process

The awards committee consists of three full time faculty members, initially appointed by the Dean. Each year, the previous year’s award winner comes onto the committee, and the longest-serving faculty member on the committee rolls off. Nominations are sought from any current Lehigh student, faculty or staff member. The committee will especially solicit nominations from each department chair. The committee will review the nominations as well as the nominee’s vita. The nomination deadline for 2024 is April 1.

Award Recipients

• 2022-2023 - Shin-Yi Chou, professor, economics
• 2021-2022 - Andreea Kiss, associate professor, management
• 2020-2021 - Marietta Peytcheva, associate professor, accounting