Columbia faculty, students, and staff are on the cutting edge of advancements in all fields and their work is fittingly awarded and recognized. Below, find the most recent accomplishments and milestones as well as monthly lists of recent awards.
If you have an accomplishment you'd like to be considered for inclusion, please email [email protected] with your name, title, school, department, and a link to the relevant award or milestone.
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Recent Awards & Milestones
Columbia has committed to investing more than $150 million in new benefits and services for our community through agreements with the West Harlem Development Corporation and Empire State Development, including more than $76 million to the local development corporation for uses determined by the community.
Last year, J. Thomas Vaughan joined Columbia as director of Magnetic Resonance Research, a new University-wide position. A pioneer in the field with 45 patents to his name, Vaughan designs and builds the MRI systems that produce high-resolution images of anatomical, metabolic and physiological systems and functions. His inventions, usually licensed by the biotech and medical industries, are found in most MRI systems.
Columbia University chemist Xiaoyang Zhu has been named a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
When faced with planning the next phase of construction on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, Marcelo Velez sometimes flips open his laptop and “walks” through a computer-generated 3-D model of the 17-acre building site. The technology is just one of many tools that helps Velez, vice president of Columbia’s Manhattanville Development Group, manage every aspect of construction of the University’s newest campus.
Columbia University and Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith are pleased to announce that A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: A Radical Fairy Realness Ritual by Taylor Mac and Matt Ray is the 2017 winner of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.
Jameel Jaffer, founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has set the institute’s agenda for its first year with a newly assembled launch team. The institute, created with $60 million in funding committed by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2016, will use research, education and litigation to preserve and advance First Amendment rights—expanding the freedoms of speech and the press—in the digital age.
Columbia Mathematics Professor Mohammed Abouzaid has been named a 2017 recipient of the prestigious New Horizons in Mathematics Prize. The $100,000 award recognizes the achievements and raises the profiles of early-career physicists and mathematicians.
Columbia oceanographer and paleoclimatologist Peter B. de Menocal, was appointed Dean of Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He was also named as Thomas Alva Edison/Con Edison Professor, a newly established chair funded by Con Edison.
Kellie Jones, associate professor of Art History and Archaeology, and Sarah Stillman, director of the Global Migration Program at Columbia Journalism School, are among those named 2016 Fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
