Artificial intelligence is making its way into nearly every corner of our lives, transforming how we work, communicate, and solve problems. Far beyond the tech sector, it’s reshaping fields you might not expect, from patent law to accounting education.
Lehigh alumni are at the forefront of these changes, finding creative ways to use AI, challenge convention, and open doors to new possibilities. Meet four graduates who are showing us what AI can do — and where it might take us next.
Christine LaBerge ’99 | Brooke Travis ’01 | Alexandra Gonzalez ’19 M.Eng’20 | Craig Gordon ’76
Alumni Standouts in AI
Christine LaBerge ’99
Head of Innovation and Engineering at Landfall IP
Industry: Law
After 15 years as a civil engineer, LaBerge found herself at a crossroads when administrative changes affected her role. Like any good engineer, she built herself a new path, launching Landfall IP to bring fresh thinking to patent law.
Drawing on her engineering background and the patent law knowledge she gained through her Master of Business Administration, LaBerge saw an opportunity to use AI to make the patent process more efficient and accessible.
“A lot of people are implementing AI into their existing workflow, but I saw the opportunity to apply it with a more significant impact, specifically in this field,” says LaBerge. “With the way patents were crafted, there was so much room for transformation and disruption.”
A natural entrepreneur, LaBerge thrives on finding new solutions. Her work in patent law lets her indulge her curiosity, support inventors, and serve clients who might otherwise struggle to access traditional legal services. Through Landfall IP, she works with everyone from individual founders — a group often underserved by conventional patent law — to major corporations. Helping inventors bring their ideas to life without getting bogged down by red tape is one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
As head of innovation and engineering, LaBerge oversees operations and efficiency initiatives and guides the development and implementation of AI tools. No two days look quite the same. She might pitch a new strategy, write code, or connect a client with one of the company’s partner law firms. One constant, however, is learning. LaBerge says her time at Lehigh taught her to adapt, embrace change, and keep moving forward.
“I love to invent solutions, and that gives me a lot of energy,” she says. “That’s why I became an engineer in the first place.”
Her advice to others navigating the evolving world of AI is to stay curious and explore new tools.
“One of the best things you can do is be willing to learn what’s out there in an open-minded way. Learn how AI can be a tool to augment the human expertise that you bring!”
Brooke Travis ’01
Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Sandbar
Industry: Wearable Technology
Relentless curiosity has taken Travis on a winding career journey, from Lehigh and a journalism degree to film and fashion, then into health and wellness and, now, wearable AI technology. Along the way, one thread has connected it all: her love of finding stories, sharing them creatively, and bringing people together.
That curiosity led her to Sandbar, a wearable AI hardware company exploring new ways for people to work through their thoughts. Its first product, Stream, is a private voice ring designed to help people think through ideas, capture notes, and organize their schedules. It also lets users engage with their own thoughts through back-and-forth conversation.
In her role, Travis helps shape how customers experience the product. For invitation-only demos in New York and San Francisco, she created a gallery-like atmosphere, with cameras prohibited, that reflected Stream’s intimate, personal nature.
Sandbar isn’t Travis’ first foray into AI. In 2023, while navigating her daughter’s neurodiversity diagnosis, she experienced firsthand how difficult it could be to find reliable information. Recognizing that other parents faced the same challenge, she built an AI-powered database using ChatGPT as a technical layer. The result was a private, Yelp-like forum connecting parents of neurodiverse children across the tri-state area. The project combined her interests in problem-solving and finding meaningful connections.
Her career has also challenged the idea that success requires following a straight line.
“When I first got into the creative industry, there weren’t a lot of Lehigh alumni, but things have changed,” Travis says. “I now help run a business, and I never would’ve thought I could do that with my background. There’s this idea of linear paths, straight roads, and life doesn’t unfold that way. I never had any certainty. I never picked a path, and in some ways that may be my biggest lesson. You can make your own dreams.”
Alexandra Gonzalez ’19 M.Eng’20
Assistant Manager of Recruitment at Doceree
Industry: Human Resources
Not every career is linear, and Gonzalez knows that firsthand. She graduated from Lehigh with a degree in architecture before earning a master’s degree in engineering focused on technical entrepreneurship. Those experiences equipped her to pivot to project management, first at Lutron Electronics and later to roles that led her to an unexpected intersection of AI, health care, and recruitment.
Today, Gonzalez works at Doceree, an AI-powered health care marketing technology company. Its platform helps connect physicians and patients throughout the prescription journey and measure engagement. Gonzalez helps identify the talent needed to advance the company’s work in the field.
“My background in recruitment has always been data and AI related, and I have a good understanding of the market,” says Gonzalez. “This role is different because of health care, which has been interesting for me. We’re an AI-driven company looking for ‘unicorns’ and innovators within the field, and I play a critical role in finding the right people to suit that.”
For Gonzalez, the appeal goes beyond working in a dynamic industry. She loves connecting people with opportunities that allow them to blossom. Seeing the right person find the right role — and watching them flourish as a result — keeps her motivated.
She also credits the alumni network with helping her navigate an unconventional career path.
“All the experiences that I’ve had from Lehigh to now wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Lehigh alumni network,” she says. “Those connections led me to where I am now and kept me open minded to what my career might look like in the future.”
Craig Gordon ’76
Co-founder of TD Publishing & Research
Industry: Accounting
Before Gordon began helping accounting professionals navigate artificial intelligence, he spent 20 years working in journalism, conducting investigative research, and later worked in data analytics. When AI and large language models entered the conversation, Gordon returned to Lehigh and partnered with Jack Lule to help bring the subject to campus. His approach to teaching the technology emphasized both what AI can do and the human questions surrounding its development and use.
“AI’s just another large-scale technological change like automobiles,” Gordon says. “It’s nothing that we haven’t gone through before. When I teach it, I compare it to primitive humans discovering fire. They learned the benefits, but also the dangers, and they recognized they had to continue forward toward progress. That’s where we are with AI.”
In 2020, Gordon co-founded TD Publishing & Research. The company draws on his background in research, data analytics, and education to develop AI training courses and resources for certified public accountants (CPA) and related professionals.
CPAs must complete continuing education to maintain their licenses, and keeping up with AI is increasingly important as the financial landscape evolves. TD Publishing & Research develops new courses each quarter, bringing relevant information and learning resources together in one place. The company is certified to provide continuing education to the more than 600,000 actively licensed CPAs in the United States.
The work brings together two of Gordon’s longstanding strengths: understanding complex ideas and communicating them in ways that help others put them to use.
“I have a knack for understanding what people are doing and communicating with the smartest people,” Gordon says. “By creating new things, helping people, and finding scientific breakthroughs, we’re expanding reality in exciting ways.”
