News Archive
The appearance of supermassive black holes at the dawn of the universe has puzzled astronomers since their discovery more than a decade ago. A supermassive black hole is thought to form over billions of years, but more than two dozen of these behemoths have been sighted within 800 million years of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
An international team of astronomers has observed evidence of a star that whips around a black hole at a rate of nearly twice an hour. If confirmed, the finding could demonstrate the tightest orbital dance between a black hole and a companion star ever seen.
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
Once again, I must write to you about government action negatively affecting our University community. The differences between the new executive order on immigration and refugee policies issued today and the now superseded January order (about which I wrote earlier) may or may not prove significant in the ultimate judicial determination of the order’s legality.
Six years ago, Lynn Nottage received an email from a friend who shared that staying afloat financially was a daily struggle. It made Nottage “think a lot about just how close on a day-to-day basis we are to poverty.” Nottage’s new play, Sweat, is about some of the truth she found while exploring that thought.
In my nearly 25-year career as a faculty member and advocate for diversity—racial, gender, or otherwise—at Columbia, I have had the opportunity to be involved in many memorable moments on campus. This semester, which has been marked by a number of high-profile scholarly events in addition to the usual vigorous conversations around diversity and inclusion, has been particularly memorable.
Richard K. Betts, the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies in the political science department, is widely known as an expert on U.S. foreign relations and national security. He is director of Columbia’s Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the international security policy program at the School of International and Public Affairs.
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.
Title
Director of Outreach Programs, Columbia Engineering
Years at Columbia
12
Douglas Miles is a Native American artist whose paintings and other works reference Apache motifs. In the 1990s, after watching his son skateboarding, he decided to make a board for him.
Owen Lewis is nothing if not prolific. He wrote poetry and novels as a child and young man, and at age 23 created a multimedia poetry/music work called New Pictures at an Exhibition, which was reviewed by The New York Times in 1972.
Associate Professor Kate Orff’s Oyster-tecture is a plan to bring oysters back to New York Harbor. Oysters filter water and form reefs that can buffer against storm surges. The project, expected to be completed by 2019, will create bays to host finfish, shellfish and lobsters while reducing erosion. It will also serve as an environmental education site. Courtesy of Kate Orff.
As a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School and associate director of the mediation program, Shawn Watts (Law’12) is well-versed in dispute-resolution techniques. He also brings another set of skills and experiences to the negotiating table: Native American peacemaking.
Dear Alma,
Who is the person for whom the Seixas Award, given by Columbia/Barnard Hillel, is named? —Religion Researcher
Mechanical Engineering Professor Hod Lipson’s latest book, Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead, coauthored with Melba Kurman, gained attention when it came out last fall for its prediction that these autos would become a reality sooner rather than later.