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In the limestone outcrops of Italy’s Apennine Mountains, geologist Walter Alvarez collected some of the earliest evidence that a massive fireball falling from space some 66 million years ago was responsible for killing off the dinosaurs.
Yaakov Stern, a professor in the departments in Neurology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, is affiliated with the Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute. His research centers on age-related changes in memory, and why similar patients may show more cognitive deficit than others.
Michael Purdy, Columbia’s executive vice president for research, oversees the polices that govern University research and works to bring Columbia’s many disciplines together where their areas of study overlap.
A behavioral economist, Wojciech Kupczuk, studies how people make financial choices, particularly having to do with wealth transfer, inheritance and savings decisions—all issues that affect an aging population.
René Hen, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry, studies the effects of mood disorders in animals and memory deficits. His lab has found a commonality between chronic stress and age-related memory problems, both of which lead to a drop in the production of neurons. Now he is trying to determine why that is and if there are ways to overcome the problem.
Franck Polleux, a professor of neuroscience, joined the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute in 2013, where he studies the early brain development in mammals as well as the parts of the brain that lose synapses during early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. His research has shown that they are the same pathways.
G.G. Michelson, who passed away on January 10, was one of six women in her class at Columbia Law School. After graduation she joined the Executive Training Squad at R.H. Macy & Co. where she continuously broke barriers for women, holding a series of increasingly senior positions until her retirement in 1992.
Pow! Bam! Zap! Columbia has surprising, even eye-popping, connections to comic book superheroes.
After serving as chief executive officer of Aetna Inc., Jack Rowe became a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health. Trained as a gerontologist, Rowe sees longer life spans as posing a challenge to society on such issues as retirement, infrastructure, urban planning and medicine.
Geriatrician Ruth Finkelstein, an assistant professor of health policy and management, works on ways to boost the quality of life and health of those at retirement age or older. “It’s time to rethink our view of retirement, which currently falls short,” she says, noting that it isn’t designed for older people who want to stay engaged, active and stimulated.
As founding director of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Ursula Staudinger, a lifespan psychologist, focuses on what happens in a society whose population is living longer than ever.
Thomas A. DiPrete is Giddings Professor of Sociology, co-director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), co-director of the Center for the Study of Wealth and Inequality at Columbia University, and a faculty member of the Columbia Population Research Center. He discusses what life could look like we science successfully increases healthy life spans.
Glance through the glass doors of the Miller Theatre and you will see vivid, large-scale paintings pulsating with color on the lobby walls.
Glance through the glass doors of the Miller Theatre and you will see vivid, large-scale paintings pulsating with color on the lobby walls.
Jason Bordoff, a former member of the White House staff and a top energy policy expert, started learning about the industry at an early age. His father and grandfather owned gas and auto service stations in Brooklyn when he was growing up. His mother emigrated to the U.S. from the Middle East with her family as a teenager.