Fulbright Awards, Virchow Prize, Pew Biomedical Scholar, 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 June 26 to Aug. 20, 2025.

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. 

INSTITUTIONAL

Columbia Magazine won three Council for Advancement and Support of Education writing prizes at the 2025 Circle of Excellence Awards: The Art of the Book Deal by Rebecca Shapiro on Columbia Journalism School Professor Samuel G. Freedman, The Columbian Who Invented Eustace Tilley by Paul Hond on Corey Ford (CC 1923), and Can We Solve the Parkinson’s Puzzle? by Paul Hond.

The International Collaboration and Exchange Program (ICEP) was recognized with the 2025 ASPIRE-to-Excellence Award in International Collaboration in Health Professions Education by the International Association for Health Professions Education (AMEE), one of the most prestigious medical education associations in the world. The ICEP was founded in 2014 by Anette Wu, Associate Professor of Medical Sciences (in Medicine) and Pathology and Cell Biology, and pursues the mission of science diplomacy and global collaboration in health professions.

FACULTY

ARTS & HUMANITIES

Anne Bogart, Professor and Head of the Directing Concentration in the Theatre Program at School of the Arts, will be inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame at its 54th annual ceremony this fall at the Gershwin Theatre. The celebration of her lifetime achievement reflects her indelible impact on theater as an art form. 

Kate Orff, Director of the Urban Design Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and founder of SCAPE, has received the 2025 American Society of Landscape Architects’ Landscape Architecture Firm Award, the profession’s highest honor. From Living Breakwaters in New York to Tom Lee Park in Memphis, SCAPE fuses ecological insight with on-the-ground dialogue, stitching nature back into the city to create durable, socially vibrant public spaces. 

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, was awarded the Virchow Prize 2025. The prize recognizes pioneering, lifelong leadership in advancing maternal, newborn, and child health equity through community-centered, evidence-based research, particularly in support of some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Paul Linton, NOMIS Foundation Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, was awarded the David Marr Medal by the Applied Vision Association for his pioneering research on visual experience.

Bianca Jones Marlin, Herbert and Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Cell Research, was named a 2025 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. The program provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health.

Pamela Smith, Founding Director of Columbia’s Center for Science and Society, has been awarded the History of Science Society's Sarton Medal. As the Society's most prestigious award, it honors a lifetime of scholarly achievement. 

Kaveri A. Thakoor, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmic Science and member of the Data Science Institute, was granted a Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB)/Tom Wertheimer Career Development Award in Data Science to support her eye research. The RPB Career Development Award was established in 1990 to support outstanding early-career researchers in making critical discoveries and launching their careers as independent investigators, with the support of a mentorship team.

ENGINEERING

Kui Ren, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, is the recipient of the 2025 Feng Kang Prize, the most prestigious honor in computational mathematics awarded in China.

Renata Wentzcovitch, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, won the 2025 Bridgman Award. She is the first woman ever to receive this prestigious recognition from the International Conference on High Pressure Science and Technology.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Maria Foscarinis (BC’77, GSAS’78, LAW’81), Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, was selected as a 2025-2026 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Brazil. 

Brett House, Professor of Professional Practice in the Economics Division at Columbia Business School, was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for significant contributions to Canada in the fields of policy research, advocacy, and volunteer leadership.

Elora Mukherjee, Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law, received a 2025 Partnership for Children Award from the Association for Child Psychoanalysis. 

Maria Antonia Tigre, Director of Global Climate Litigation with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, won the Hsu Mo Prize as part of the International Law Association–American Society of International Law Asia-Pacific Research Forum 2025. This prize recognizes accomplishments as they pertain to research in international law and climate litigation. 

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

This year, 25 recent Columbia University graduates and alumni have been recognized by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Fulbright U.S. Student grants, annually available in 140+ countries around the world, offer funding for graduating seniors and alumni/ae to undertake independent research projects, graduate study, or English-language teaching positions.

Michael Boisture (CC'25) was accepted into the Peace Corps and departs for Zambia in late summer to begin training as an English teacher. 

Emma Burris (BC'26) is a 2025 Center for Institutional Courage Research Grant Recipient, whose project is the first to study institutional betrayal in the context of the adolescent psychiatric inpatient experience.

Alicia Chime, PhD candidate in pathobiology and molecular medicine, and Hashim Al-Hashimi, Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Chime's PhD advisor, were named to the 2025 cohort of the HHMI Gilliam Fellows Program. The program launches promising PhD students into impactful scientific research careers while fostering inclusive training environments. Through this program, HHMI supports both graduate students and their faculty thesis advisors. 

Jacqueline Cofield (TC’24) was selected for placement on the Fulbright Specialist Roster for 2025-2028. Cofield’s interdisciplinary work bridges education, museum studies, arts integration, and Black diasporic studies. 

Chantel Heard (SSW’26) was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad scholarship, which provides grants to support overseas projects in training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages. Heard traveled to South Africa to learn the Zulu language and develop a curriculum to be disseminated throughout the United States.

Matt Kautz (TC'22), Kemigisha Richardson (TC'26), and Noël Um-Lo (TC’26) were awarded 2025 National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships.

Amalia Oliva Rojas (SOA’25) won the Leah Playwriting Prize for her play In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too.

Aaron Zweig, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics, was awarded the prestigious Damon Runyon Quantitative Biology Fellowship, one of only five awarded nationwide. The fellowship supports early-career computational scientists embedded in biology labs, enabling them to apply innovative quantitative tools to critical biological questions in cancer.