2024 Emmy Winners, 26 Millennium Fellows, Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, and More

Columbia News produces a monthly newsletter (subscribe here!) and article series featuring a roundup of awards and milestones that Columbia faculty, staff, and students have received in recent days. In this edition, you’ll find awards and milestones from August 22 to September 19, 2024.

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. 

You can take a look at past accomplishments on our Awards & Milestones page. And you can subscribe to receive the newsletter in your inbox. 

FACULTY

ARTS & HUMANITIES

Brent Hayes Edwards, Peng Family Professor of English and Comparative Literature, has won a 2024 American Book Award for Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music, which he co-wrote with Henry Threadgill.

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Francesca Bartolini, Associate Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology; Safa Elkefi, Project Manager at Columbia Nursing; Rolando Perez-Lorenzo, Herbert and Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Dermatology; and Xiao Zhao, Assistant Professor of Medicine, were named 2024 Velocity Fellows.

Dhruv Balwada, Lamont Assistant Research Professor, Ocean and Climate Physics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, received the Nicholas P. Fofonoff Early-Career Award from the American Meteorological Society for fundamental work characterizing tracer transport and energy transfers between mesoscale and submesoscale ocean flows.

Dmitri Basov, Higgins Professor and Chair of Physics, was elected to the European Academy of Sciences.

Timothy C. Berkelbach, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, which recognizes and encourages fundamental research in pure chemistry carried out in North America.

Ivan Z. Corwin, Professor of Mathematics, was named a finalist for the 2024 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Arthur Neuberger, former Columbia Postdoctoral Fellow, and Chiara Trovatello, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, were named finalists for the Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. The national award is the largest unrestricted prize for early-career scientists and honors outstanding young scientists and engineers under the age of 42. The regional awards honor outstanding postdoctoral scientists from academic research institutions across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

David A. Fidock, C.S. Hamish Young Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and Medical Sciences, was awarded the Alice and CC Wang Award in Molecular Parasitology from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The award recognizes established investigators who are making seminal contributions to the field of molecular parasitology.

The Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research has announced four new Herbert and Florence Irving Scholars for the 2024-2027 cohort: Barry Fine, Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Medicine; Gamze Gürsoy, Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics; Claudia Lugo-Candelas, Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry); and Meghna S. Trivedi, Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Richard Hamilton, Davies Professor of Mathematics, was awarded the Basic Science Lifetime Award in Mathematics at the 2024 International Congress of Basic Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Salim Abdool Karim, CAPRISA Professor for Global Health, received the Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture from the Royal Society.

Clare Cardo McKegney, Associate Professor of Nursing, has been awarded the 2024 Presidential Commendation by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.

Dennis A. Mitchell, Executive Vice President for University Life and Professor of Dental Medicine, received the William J. Gies Award for Eminence in Achievement from the American Dental Education Association Gies Foundation.

Emmanuelle Passegué, Director of Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, was awarded the Donald Metcalf Award from the International Society for Experimental Hematology (ISEH), their highest life-time achievement award.

ENGINEERING

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Climate School, and Director of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, will receive the American Bar Association Lifetime Achievement Award in Environmental, Energy, or Resources Law and Policy at the fall conference of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources.

Eric Johnson, Norman Eig Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, is a winner of the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science, which honors APS members for their lifetime of significant intellectual achievements in applied psychological research and their impact on a critical problem in society at large.

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

A cohort of 26 Millennium Fellows has been selected at Columbia University this year. Presented by the United Nations Academic Impact and MCN, the Millennium Fellowship is a semester-long leadership development program to support student leadership for UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Natalie Fardian-Melamed, Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Mechanical Engineering, was invited to take part in the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting.

STAFF

Tanya Pope, Assistant Vice President, University Supplier Diversity, was appointed to Mayor Adams’ Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises Advisory Board effective Aug. 1, 2024. 

SPECIAL AWARDS

Several Columbians won 2024 Emmy Awards in television: Lucia Aniello (CC'04) for "Hacks," Tim Carvell (CC’95) and Joanna Rothkopf (JRN'14) for “Last Week Tonight,” Ramin Hedayati (CC'02) for “The Daily Show,” Justin Marks (CC'02) and Jonathan van Tulleken (SOA'10) for "Shōgun," and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (CC'99) for “The Bear.” Check out all the Columbians whose projects were nominated.