Engineering

Researchers at Columbia Engineering and Georgia Institute of Technology have published a study in the February 4 online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) showing—for the first time—that certain volatile organic gases can promote cloud formation in a way never considered before by atmospheric scientists. 

Ken Shepard's research focuses on finding new applications for integrated circuits, or chips. Semiconductor research has, he says, “focused on using integrated circuits for building computers and communication devices like cell phones, but what we haven’t really explored is how we can use them for biotechnology.”

Jim Yardley has seen firsthand how the nanotechnology field has exploded over the past decade. “It’s extremely exciting,” says the managing director of Columbia’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. 

It’s relatively simple to build a device capable of detecting wireless signals if you don’t mind making one that consumes lots of power. It’s not so easy to design energy-efficient devices that function as well as the components they replace, or to do it at the nano scale. 

“The development of this new technology over the past decade has brought us to the edge of fantastic new discoveries,” said Michael Purdy, the University’s executive vice president of research. “This is revolutionary. That means that Columbia has to be at the lead, just as we have been in nuclear physics and as we are in climate change.” 

Dillon Liu, SEAS ’13, just found out that not only has he won a prestigious Marshall Scholarship—he is also the first Columbia Engineering student ever to receive one.

Cathy Popkin, the Jesse and George Siegel Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Slavic Languages, was honored this fall for her passion for teaching, along with David Yao, professor of industrial engineering and operations research at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. 

 “I like building things from scratch,” says Traub, the Edwin Armstrong Professor of Computer Science, who was tasked by then dean Peter Likins with creating a department out of virtually nothing. 

Tiffany Shaw, assistant professor of applied mathematics, has been awarded a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, a prestigious honor given to a group of the most promising and innovative researchers who are at the beginning stages of their careers. Shaw, who has a joint appointment in Columbia’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science, is one of 16 fellows named who will each receive an unrestricted grant of $875,000, distributed over five years.

Alvin E. Roth, who graduated from Columbia Engineering in 1971 and is currently the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard, was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work in the practical design of market institutions.

Research on volcanic eruptions and on the structure of abstract graphs have resulted in two Columbia professors being named MacArthur Fellows, the “genius” awards given to individuals who have shown “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.” 

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a new software that can simultaneously calculate the carbon footprints of thousands of products faster than ever before.