2024 Year in Review: The Top 12 Stories That Garnered Your Attention on ‘Columbia News’
What stories grabbed the attention of our readers in 2024? The results may surprise you.
Sometimes, a year moves so fast it is hard to remember all the great things that happened. That is certainly the case with the past 12 months at Columbia, where research breakthroughs, insightful writing, student achievements, and incredible partnerships yielded exciting news throughout the year.
We encourage you to look back over the past 12 months with us as we make sense of the year by returning to the top 12 stories that resonated with our readers.
Thank you for keeping up with all things Columbia alongside us this year! Here's to a 2025 with even more greatness.
JANUARY 2024: The Era of AI
TOP STORY: Columbia Joins New York Consortium on Artificial Intelligence
2024 kicked off with the exciting news that Columbia would join six other research institutions as part of a plan announced by New York Governor Kathy Hochul to make the state a leader in artificial intelligence research and innovation. At the center of this effort, called “Empire AI,” is the building of a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence computing center in upstate New York to promote responsible research and development and to create jobs and other opportunities.
This month, readers also gravitated to a profile of Sarah Wang, a Columbia College student, who loves "walking here at a pace faster than that in any other city, or people-watching while sitting at a sidewalk café. I like that you never feel alone in this city, not even for an instant." Fitting for the beginning of the year, too, a piece on Columbia faculty's research-backed tips on starting the year off strong.
FEBRUARY 2024: Love and Music
TOP STORY: 'This Happens From Time to Time': 9 Columbia Love Stories to Make Your Heart Go Pitter-Patter
It is one of our favorite times of the year at Columbia — Valentine's Day and the reemergence of the Columbia Alumni Association’s #ColumbiaLoveStories. This year, our roundup of nine purely Columbia meet-cutes and love stories was the top story of the month.
But that didn't stop readers from diving into the announcement of three Columbians named Sloan Research Fellows who were recognized for their contributions in economics, mathematics, and engineering as well as the fascinating story of Columbia's Nano Initiative scientists and a music scholar who used state-of-the-art technology to examine a medieval score.
MARCH 2024: Personal Stories and Political Predictions
TOP STORY: A Book About the End of One Relationship, and the Beginning of Another
March's top story delved into the powerhouse first memoir of Leslie Jamison, the head of the nonfiction concentration in the Writing Program at the School of the Arts. As the story shares: "In examining her love for her young daughter, her ruptured marriage, and the legacy of her parents’ complicated bond, Jamison explores what it means for a woman to be many things at once—a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover."
Also of interest to readers this month: early insights into the 2024 presidential election from three Columbians and the first set of recommendations from Columbia's Antisemitism Task Force.
APRIL 2024: An Eclipse to Remember
TOP STORY: Eclipses Can Be Life-Changing
On April 8, a large portion of the U.S. was swathed in darkness for a total solar eclipse. On Columbia's Morningside Heights campus, the eclipse reached about 90% totality, but that did not stop our community from coming out to celebrate — and look skyward! The month's top story showcased that fascination: Joseph Patterson reflected on how a 1970 solar eclipse set him on the path to becoming a Columbia astronomy professor.
Columbians also started gearing up for graduation season, with excitement around the year's Class Day speakers catapulting our roundup into the top three stories of the month.
MAY 2024: Graduation Celebration
TOP STORY: 15 Photos from Graduation Festivities Celebrating Columbia's Class of 2024
In May, Columbia celebrated the more than 16,222 degrees conferred upon the Class of 2024 from Columbia’s 19 schools. Readers gravitated to photos from the various events celebrating our grads, our graduation landing page, and this guide on where to capture the Empire State Building glowing blue for Columbia graduates.
Also big this month? The announcement of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes conferred by Columbia University at the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
JUNE 2024: Research That Is Truly Cool For School
TOP STORY: The Coldest Lab in New York Has a New Quantum Offering
Columbia is home to the coolest spot in town: Columbia physicist Sebastian Will's lab, where an experimental group specializes in pushing atoms and molecules to temperatures just fractions of a degree above absolute zero, which is actually the coldest place in New York. Readers this month gravitated to the news that the lab successfully created a unique quantum state of matter, called a Bose-Einstein Condensate, out of molecules.
Readers also couldn't get enough of this roundup of the fourteen most important research findings of the beginning of the year, including insights about nanoplastics in our bottled water.
JULY 2024: Going for Gold
TOP STORY: Here Are All the Paris Olympics-Bound Columbia Athletes That We Know So Far
All eyes were on our Columbians headed to Paris to compete (and coach!) in the Olympics this summer, which was not only our top story for July but the fifth-most popular story for the whole year. Olympics fever did not stop there, though — another reader-favorite story for July was this retrospective look at Columbians who won medals at the Olympics over the years.
Of course, we would be remiss if we did not mention the newest addition to that list — Jackie Dubrovich (CC'16), who won a gold medal as part of Team Foil at the 2024 Olympics.
AUGUST 2024: Making the Most of a New School Year
TOP STORY: Your Columbia Student Starter Pack 2024
The back-to-school season starts sooner than you think and in preparation for the start of Columbia's fall semester, readers flocked to our comprehensive toolkit for students new and old. Of particular interest was the #lifehacks students and alumni shared on how to make the most of one's time at Columbia and this guide of 50+ places in Morningside Heights and Manhattanville to visit.
The new school year also heralded the start of Interim President Katrina Armstrong's leadership of the University, another top story for the month of August.
SEPTEMBER 2024: Election Season Heats Up
TOP STORY: Andrew Gelman's U.S. Election Model Is Tracking the Candidates' Chances
After Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic nominee for President in early August, reader interest in election-related content reached new heights, starting with this profile of Andrew Gelman, a Columbia professor of political science and statistics, who collaborated with Ben Goodrich, an instructor in the political science department, to develop The Economist’s election tracker. Readers also began following our Election 2024 landing page, which highlighted expert insight from across the University.
Also of interest this month: this photo essay highlighting back-to-school activities across Columbia's campuses.
OCTOBER 2024: A Waterfall Moment
TOP STORY: Our Brains Divide the Day Into Chapters, New Psychology Research Offers Details on How
Columbia News readers love learning about how our brains work and this month's top story proved no different with insight into how our brain divides the day into individual events that we can understand and remember separately, based on the research of Christopher Baldassano, an associate professor of Psychology at Columbia.
Readers also dove into this story about a major partnership to clear the Morningside Park pond of toxic algal blooms, repair broken water pumps, and restore its iconic waterfall. The project brought together faculty from Columbia’s Climate and Engineering schools with a roster of partners from other Columbia schools, as well as members of the community. It aims to address issues affecting the pond in Morningside Park, and to provide a climate resilience blueprint for public parks in New York City and worldwide.
NOVEMBER 2024: A Changing Nation
TOP STORY: Columbia Experts React, Share Insights on 2024 Election Results
After a tumultuous election season, Americans went to the polls and elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States, four years after he left office as the 45th. Readers turned to Columbia News for expert guidance on the results and Columbia faculty and staff had plenty of insight.
On the Columbia front, readers also gravitated to the announcement of a new initiative called Columbia AI, which will promote Columbia’s work on artificial intelligence, with courses, curricula, events, digital tools, and more.
DECEMBER 2024: The Champions
TOP STORY: 10 Photos Celebrating Columbia Football's First Ivy League Title in 63 Years
On Nov. 23, the Columbia Lions Football team achieved a milestone it had not reached since 1961: an Ivy League championship title! Readers wanted to relive the magic all the way into December with our photo retrospective of the win and celebrations afterward.