In Douglas Kowalewski’s office in Chandler-Ullmann Hall, a Frank Sinatra vinyl hangs from the wall.
With blue-rimmed glasses and a perfectly positioned tie, he prepares to take the podium of his first class. The first-generation college student had dreamed of becoming a teacher since he was a kid.
But not necessarily a psychology professor.
Little did he know one class would change his life forever.
Kowalewski joined Lehigh’s psychology department as a teaching assistant professor in fall 2025, immediately following his doctoral training at the University at Albany.
For Kowalewski, coming to Lehigh meant returning to his home state, being from a small town in Greene County that lies just across the West Virginia border about five and a half hours from Bethlehem.
In this quiet, southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, Kowalewski grew up alongside his parents, older brother and their beagle Mario. He often spent holidays with his grandparents who lived only minutes away.
He enjoyed music, playing video games and going to school. Sometimes, he thumbed through history books.
Despite Kowalewski’s current career in psychology, he said history was his real love first. It’s what led him to Gettysburg College for his undergraduate degree.
While there, another passion materialized: Dr. Christopher Barlett’s social psychology course.
“It was before 9 a.m., several times a week — a crazy time that a first-year student should not take a class,” Kowalewski said.
He said he decided to take the course mostly because he’d performed well in his high school psychology class. But this time, he fell in love with the subject.
As semesters turned into years, psychology became a point of fixation within Kowalewski’s studies. By the end of his time at Gettysburg, he had earned a dual degree in history and psychology.
If psychology was Kowalewski’s second love, music was his third. So he chose to minor in it.
That Frank Sinatra vinyl now hanging in his office is more than a tasteful piece of wall decor. For Kowalewski, it represents his favorite artist and music genre, and the motivation behind his research.
He played the saxophone from fourth grade through college, where he was a member of the marching band. The more he played, the more he fell in love with jazz music.
“I was probably playing the saxophone around 20 hours a week in college,” Kowalewski said. “I felt that I couldn’t do research unless it was related to that.”
Barlett served as a mentor for Kowalewski, encouraging him to seek a graduate school path that would allow him to blend his interests.
Barlett told Kowalewski a music-psychology program might be too niche to find and suggested looking for someone in social or cognitive psychology who integrates music into their work.
That led him to Ronald Friedman at the University at Albany.
Kowalewski said he was accepted without even visiting the campus because Friedman wanted to have a student focused on music, and he happened to be the first.
Kowalewski worked with Friedman through all seven years of his doctoral program. He explored ideas in music cognition and perception, such as what leads people to dance to certain rhythms and sounds. As he studied, he dreamed of teaching.
Just after COVID began in 2020, Kowalewski instructed his first college class at Albany.
The first two courses he taught were fully online. By fall 2021, he stepped into his first physical classroom to teach what is now his favorite course — Introduction to Psychology. To this day, he has yet to go a semester without teaching it.
“I love it,” Kowalewski said. “I want to do it forever.”
While most graduate students teach only two or three classes, Kowalewski taught 24.
After instructing at both the University of Albany and Skidmore College, Kowalewski finished his doctorate in May.
When it was time to apply for jobs, he took part in three interviews. Three offers later, Lehigh emerged as his ideal work location.
Four and a half hours from home and two hours away from friends in Gettysburg, Philadelphia and New York, Kowalewski said it was close to all of the places he’s connected to, but far enough away to create something he felt was his own.
In addition to the location, Lehigh made Kowalewski feel like he could be a part of a team, so he accepted the job.
On his first day, energy and excitement radiated from students in the room. He had taught Intro to Psychology several times before, but said he never had so many students introduce themselves or express excitement for the course.
Jayden Yochai, ‘29, is currently in Kowalewski’s class. She said his passion and knowledge of the subject he teaches is obvious and contagious.
“He shows up every day to class very happy and smiley,” Yochai said. “When he’s giving us information, you can tell that he really knows it. He’s not just reading off the board. He’s giving his own examples and analogies.”
Hannah Zeller, ‘29, said Kowalewski’s commitment to providing an open door for his students is what makes him an outstanding professor.
“He’s a great person to have in your corner,” Zeller said.
Influenced by the teachers and professors in his own life as a first-generation college student, Kowalewski knows it’s the genuine connections and devotion to his students that draw the line between a professor who merely teaches and one who makes a lasting impact on the lives of their students.
This semester, several times a week, Kowalewski is once again in an early morning psychology class.
Only this time, he’s the professor at the podium.