News
Jameel Jaffer, founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has set the institute’s agenda for its first year with a newly assembled launch team. The institute, created with $60 million in funding committed by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2016, will use research, education and litigation to preserve and advance First Amendment rights—expanding the freedoms of speech and the press—in the digital age.
Columbia University announced that outgoing Secretary of the Treasury Jacob “Jack” Lew would be joining its School of International and Public Affairs faculty as a visiting professor in February. He will lecture, teach graduate students, and work with faculty members at the school and across the University on the subjects of international economics, fiscal and trade policy, and a range of other public policy issues.
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet visited the R/V Marcus G. Langseth on Jan. 9 when it docked at the port city of Valparaiso, touring the ship—which is operated by Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory--on its months-long voyage to map the occurrences of earthquakes and tsunamis in the region.
Title
Director of Academic Administration in the Writing Program and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Writing
Years at Columbia
8
How many law courses discuss the creation of the heavens, the mark of Cain, and the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden?
Geoffrey Heal studied physics and economics as an undergraduate, but has always cared deeply about the environment. “I’ve been interested in nature all my life,” he says. “As a kid I was buying binoculars and going bird watching and buying a little camera and taking pictures of birds and things like that.”
Linda P. Fried, dean and DeLamar Professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, was honored for her leadership in scientific research on aging with the 2016 Inserm International Prize, given each year by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research. For video and to read more about Fried’s work, visit the Mailman School of Public Health site.
Dear Antiquarian,
Among the 600,000 volumes in Avery Library is Leon Batista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, the oldest printed book on architecture in the West. Printed in 1485, it is an overview of architectural principles, exploring concepts such as proportion, durability and beauty. Though not illustrated, architectural treatises that followed it shortly thereafter would feature numerous illustrations.
In the latest installment of Professor Mike Massimino’s Extreme Engineering series, he visits Eitan Grinspun, director of Columbia’s Computer Graphics Group, who develops computer programs to animate Hollywood movies, including the new Disney feature Moana.