Obama Foundation Leaders, Renaissance Woman Award, Future Nobel Laureate 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 September 19 to October 24, 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. 

INSTITUTIONAL

Insight Into Diversity has awarded Columbia University with a 2024 Insight Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence Award for “demonstrating an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion across your campus.”

FACULTY

ARTS & HUMANITIES

Emanuel Admassu and Nina Cooke John, both professors at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, are among the Exhibit Columbus 2024-2025 Miller Prize winners, and will design site-specific installations at prominent public locations around Columbus, a small Indiana city with an outsized architectural pedigree. 

Isabel Huacuja Alonso, Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, has received the 2024 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award for her book, Radio for the Millions. David Helfand, Professor of Astronomy, is the 2024 runner-up for his book, The Universal Timekeepers.

Seyla Benhabib, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia Law, was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize by the City of Frankfurt, which acknowledges outstanding performances in the fields of philosophy, music, theater, and film; and was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society, which honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields.

Jo Ann Cavallo, Chair of the Italian Department, won the UNIMA-USA Nancy Staub Publications Award for her book, The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo (1884-1947): The Paladins of France in America.  

Andrew Dolkart, Professor in the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, was honored as the inaugural awardee of the Mumford Award by Landmark West. 

Jane C. Ginsburg, Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei as a Foreign Fellow.

Eunji Kim, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, has won the Walter Lippmann Best Published Article Award from the American Political Science Association, for her article, "Entertaining Beliefs in Economic Mobility." This honor recognizes the best article published in the field of political communication in the previous calendar year.

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Genevera Allen, Professor of Statistics; David Blei, Professor of Statistics and Computer Science; Ian McKeague, Professor of Biostatistics at Mailman School of Public Health; Marcel Nutz, Professor of Statistics; and Bodhisattva Sen, Professor of Statistics, were selected to deliver an Institute of Mathematical Statistics Medallion Lecture, a high honor in the field.

Four scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons were awarded grants from NIH’s prestigious High-Risk High-Reward program, created to support unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research. Alex Dranovsky, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, received a Transformative Research Award, which funds research that could create new paradigms or challenge existing ones. Three scientists—Jennifer Small-Saunders, Assistant Professor of Medicine; Dian Yang, Assistant Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics; and Sara Zaccara, Assistant Professor in the Department of Systems Biology—received New Innovator Awards, which support unusually innovative research from early-career investigators.

Tonda Hughes, Henrik H. Bendixen Professor of International Nursing, received the Distinguished Investigator Award for Excellence in Sexual & Gender Minority Health Research from the National Institutes of Health Sexual & Gender Minority.

Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Professor of Epidemiology, and Salim S. Abdool Karim, CAPRISA Professor of Global Health, of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and CAPRISA were honored with the Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award for their contributions to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS and for transformative public health advocacy and programming throughout Africa and globally.

Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber, Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology, was recently named one of Forbes 50 Over 50: Impact recipients for her work as the founder and director of the Columbia Lighthouse Project, which champions the use of the Columbia Protocol, a screening tool for suicide risk assessment.

Sankar Ghosh, Chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology; David Ho, Clyde '56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine; and Kam Leong, Samuel Y. Sheng Professor of Biomedical Engineering, were elected to the Asian American Academy of Science and Engineering's inaugural class of fellows.

Philip L. De Jager, Weil-Granat Professor of Neurology, and Claire Riley, Karen L.K. Miller Associate Professor of Neurology, were honored as 2024 Hope Honorees at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Greater New York City-Long Island Chapter’s Dinner of Champions.

Kerstin Lehnert, Doherty Senior Research Scientist, Marine and Polar Geophysics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, received the Edward A. Flinn III Award from the American Geophysical Union for unselfish cooperation in research.

Uma M. Reddy, Professor and Vice Chair of Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Professor of Population and Family Health, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Sarah Rossetti, Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Nursing, is the 2024 recipient of the AMIA Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics.

Meghan Reading Turchioe, Assistant Professor of Nursing, was inducted as a Fellow of the American Heart Association. 

Myrna M. Weissman, Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry, whose pioneering long-term studies of depression in families have advanced behavioral interventions across the globe, received the Alma Dea Morani, MD Renaissance Woman Award from the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation. Past recipients of the award include three Nobel laureates.

ENGINEERING

Josh Alman, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, has been awarded a 2024 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. The Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering encourage visionary work by providing maximum flexibility through unrestricted funds that can be used in any way the Fellows choose, including paying for necessities like childcare.  

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

Vishal Choudhari, PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering; Cong Han, who received a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2023; Guy M. McKhann, Professor of Neurological Surgery; Nima Mesgarani, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Catherine Schevon, Associate Professor of Neurology, along with collaborators at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, and the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, were awarded third place winners of the annual International BCI Award, which recognizes outstanding and innovative research in the field of Brain-Computer Interfaces.

Hunter Doradea (GS’25) is one of only 11 global students to receive a Future Nobel Laureate Scholarship for 2024. Created with The Forum on Education Abroad and the Nobel Prize Museum, this student program will include completing a project-based course, an international field study, and an action-learning project, and scholars learn from global thought leaders at the Nobel Week Dialogue in Stockholm.

Victoria O. Nguyen, PhD candidate in Social Work and Irving Institute TL1 doctoral trainee at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, received a doctoral student award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) for outstanding contributions in public advocacy, clinical work, and traumatic stress research. She was honored with a commemorative plaque and presented her research at the ISTSS Annual Meeting, a global forum focused on advancing the understanding and treatment of traumatic stress.

Aghnia Dima Rochmawati, MPA candidate in the Climate, Energy, and Environment Program at Columbia SIPA, has been honored with a place globally in the 2024 Women of the Future 50 Rising Stars in ESG, a recognition that highlights emerging leaders in the field of Environmental, Social, and Governance.

ALUMNI

Tanvi Chaturvedi (BUS’14), Shobana Powell (SSW’14), and Lindsay Schubiner (BC’07) were recently announced among 205 leaders selected to join the Obama Foundation Leaders program. The program trains participants around the world in leadership development and civic engagement to help build their skills and scale their work across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Chaturvedi, Powell, and Schubiner are three of just 100 leaders participating in the 2024-2025 United States Leaders program.