Goldwater Scholars, American Philosophical Society Elections, 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 April 24 to May 29, 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

Several Columbians were awarded 2025 Pulitzer Prizes:

• Abu Abdelbagi, doctoral student at Teachers College, provided translations and local insights to The New York Times’ reporting on the Sudanese civil war, which won for international reporting.
• Jonathan Baran (JRN’11), Beth Reinhard (JRN’91), and Emmanuel Felton (JRN’13) are part of the staff of The Washington Post, which won for breaking news reporting.
• Leah Binkovitz (JRN’11) and colleagues at the Houston Chronicle won for editorial writing.
• Thomas Grove (JRN’05), Khadeeja Safdar (JRN’13), and Aruna Viswanatha (JRN’06) are part of the staff of The Wall Street Journal, which won for national reporting.
• Marie Howe (SOA’83) won for poetry for her collection New and Selected Poems.
• Fumika Inoue (JRN’11) and Aleksandra Michalska (JRN’08) are part of the staff of Reuters, which won for investigative reporting.
• Kavitha Surana (CC'11) was part of the ProPublica team that won for public service journalism. 
• Nick Thieme, Adjunct Journalism Professor, was part of The Baltimore Banner team that won for local reporting. 

Columbia University Fertility Center was named the No. 1 Fertility Clinic in the United States by Newsweek.

Columbia University has been named among Peace Corps’ 2025 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges and Universities. 

FACULTY

ARTS & HUMANITIES

David Henry Hwang, Professor of Theatre and Playwriting Concentration Head, School of the Arts, received the Dramatists Guild’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award; the guild’s highest honor recognizes distinguished lifetime achievement in theatrical writing.

Eleanor Johnson, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, has received the 2025 Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching. The award was established in honor of Mark Van Doren (GSAS 1920), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, novelist, playwright, critic, editor, and biographer, as well as a scholar and Columbia faculty member. The honor has been given annually since 1962 in recognition of a professor’s “humanity, devotion to truth, and inspiring leadership.”

Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies, has been awarded the 2025 Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

John McWhorter, Associate Professor of Linguistics, will receive the 2025 Richard Dawkins Award, presented annually to a distinguished individual from the worlds of science, scholarship, education, or entertainment who publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead.

James Shapiro, Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature, was honored with the 2024 New Deal Book Award for his book, The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.

Colm Tóibín, Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities, will be awarded an honorary degree from Oxford University on June 25, 2025.

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Cory Abate-Shen, Robert Sonneborn Professor of Medicine, and David Reichman, Centennial Professor of Chemistry, were elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive. 

Martin Chalfie, University Professor, and Michael Harris, Professor of Mathematics, were elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in North America, founded by Benjamin Franklin for the "promotion of useful knowledge." Election to the Society recognizes extraordinary accomplishments in every field of study as well as distinguished work in the arts, business, and public service.

Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Professor of Epidemiology, was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences.

Stavroula Kousteni, Edward P. Evans Professor of Myelodysplastic Syndromes Research, was awarded $13,753,076 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for "Aging-related hematopoietic stem cell intrinsic and microenvironmental signals in AML transformation."

Guohua Li, Finster Professor of Epidemiology and Anesthesiology, won second place in the inaugural Poetry World Cup for his poem, “True Heart.”

Jose Luchsinger, Robert F. Loeb Professor of Medicine, and Gary Miller, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, were awarded $12,505,595 over five years from the National Institute on Aging for "Impact of environmental toxicants on AD and ADRD risk in the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes study AD/ADRD project."

Stephen Morse, Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, was named the next Editor-in-Chief of the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness Journal. He also serves as Chair of the University’s Institutional Biosafety Committee. Dr. Morse served as a Guest Editor-in-Chief throughout the COVID pandemic.

Xavier Roy, Professor of Chemistry, has received a Brown Investigator Award to design and explore materials in which electrons face competing pathways for motion, giving rise to complex behaviors that, if controlled, could enable new kinds of quantum technologies. 

Michel Sadelain, Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Medicine, is one of four biomedical innovators to be jointly awarded the 2025 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, a groundbreaking form of personalized cancer immunotherapy.

Daniel Tsze, Professor of Pediatrics in Emergency Medicine, received $16,111,419 over five years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for "Efficacy of intravenous sub-dissociative ketamine versus intravenous morphine in children with acute pain."

A team led by Maryam Zolnoori, Assistant Professor of Health Sciences Research in the School of Nursing, received two national honors  from the National Institute on Aging’s PREPARE Challenge for their groundbreaking work using speech to detect early cognitive impairment. They received a Special Recognition Prize for Algorithm Development and the Explainability Bonus Prize for creating a model that not only predicts Alzheimer’s risk but also offers clinically interpretable explanations to support health care decision-making. 

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Peter Bearman, Founding Director of Incite, Co-founding Director of the Oral History Master of Arts program, and Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Social Science, has received the 2025 Kohli Prize for Sociology for his exceptional scholarly contributions to the fields of movements, networks, health, and science.

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

Sixteen students and alumni of Columbia’s three undergraduate programs have been awarded graduate research fellowships through the National Science Foundation. The Graduate Research Fellowship Program represents one of the nation’s most prestigious recognitions for young engineers, scientists, and social scientists. You can find the full list of fellows here. 

Luca Abu El-Haj (CC'26), Danielle Maydan (SEAS'26), Luca Nashabeh (CC'26), and Steven Yu (SEAS'26) have been named Goldwater Scholars. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.

Lucas Aramburu (CC’23) and Wena Teng (CC’25) have been named 2025 Yenching Academy Scholars. The Yenching Academy of Peking University aims to build bridges between China and the rest of the world through an interdisciplinary master's program in China Studies.

Gulnazik Bakhramova (GS’26) and Nina Kornfeld (CC’26) have been named 2025 Projects for Peace Fellows, to design and implement an innovative, community-driven, and scalable project addressing some of today’s most pressing global challenges. 

Suraj Chandran, doctoral student in Chemical Physics, was awarded a 2025 Hertz Fellowship in applied science, engineering, and mathematics. Hertz Fellows receive five years of funding, offering flexibility from the traditional constraints of graduate training and the independence needed to pursue research that best advances our nation’s security and leads to life-changing innovations.

Alan Chen (CC'25) has been named a 2025 NYC Urban Fellow to explore current urban issues through unique learning seminars and first-hand exposure to public sector leaders.

Lucy Corthell (SEAS’25) has been awarded a 2025-26 James C. Gaither Junior Fellowship. Gaither Junior Fellows work as research assistants to Carnegie’s senior scholars, supporting the institution’s mission of taking on the most difficult global problems and safeguard peace. Lucy will work as a fellow in Carnegie’s Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program. 

Athena Pagon (SEAS'23) has been named a Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholar from the David and Claudia Harding Foundation, which provides outstanding PhD students with life-changing opportunities to research and study at the University of Cambridge.

Harrison Zhang (CC’22) has been named a 2025 Knight-Hennessy Scholar to pursue graduate study at Stanford University. The program aims to develop a community of future global leaders who will address complex challenges through collaboration and innovation across disciplines.