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Samuel Roth has faded from history, but the books he published are hard to forget. This literary renegade, who studied at Columbia nearly 100 years ago, printed prurient novels, political exposés and foreign authors—often without their consent—and later in his life was known as the “smut king.”

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has named a veteran legal counsel, Joan C. Waters, as University Ombuds Officer.

A California judge has called David Rosner “the people’s historian.” Although the judge was speaking of Rosner’s role in a case that lists the People of the State of California as plaintiff, it is an apt description of someone who has spent decades studying environmental hazards, especially the toxic effects of lead paint on children. “Lead poisoning is the oldest and most persistent childhood epidemic in American history,” said Rosner, the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and a professor of history in the Graduate…

Columbia University announced today that two acclaimed works will be awarded the 2014 Bancroft Prize:

for Astrobiology Magazine Wind and dust conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa can help predict a meningitis epidemic. Determining the role of climate in the spread of certain diseases can assist health officials in “forecasting” epidemics.

Ask Thomas Jessell why he has dedicated his career to understanding the neurobiology of movement, and he puts it in simple terms: “Movement is the overt expression of all behaviors—without movement, intent and desire can be planned and felt but never realized.” 

Eight hundred years ago, relatively small armies of mounted warriors suddenly exploded outward from the cold, arid high-elevation grasslands of Mongolia, and conquered the largest contiguous empire in history. Led by Genghis Khan and his sons and grandsons, the Mongols briefly ruled most of modern-day Russia, China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Persia, India, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. They reshaped world geography, culture and history in ways that still resound today. How did they do it? Among the forces at work: the Mongols’ fast horses and brilliant cavalry tactics; their openness to new…

In something as tiny as a speck of dust lies the potential to change earth’s climate. When winds blow iron-rich dust off the continents, they give the plant-like algae floating on the surface of the oceans added nutrients to grow faster.

The University today announced a partnership with edX, the nonprofit online learning platform founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After a cross-country journey through the American heartland where many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic houses still stand, the vast archives of the towering American architect have arrived in New York City.
 

After a cross-country journey through the American heartland where many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic houses still stand, the vast archives of the towering American architect have arrived in New York City. In the 18 months since Columbia’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library and the Museum of Modern Art jointly acquired the archives from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for their permanent collections, Avery has gained enough insight into the works to help mount the first exhibition, \"Frank Lloyd Wright and the City: Density vs. Dispersal.\" The exhibition opened at MoMA in February…

With the exception of a two year stint as a law professor in Minnesota, Sovern has spent his entire adult life at Columbia, an illustrious career engagingly recounted in his new autobiography, "An Improbable Life: My Sixty Years at Columbia and Other Adventures."

Launched in 2008 by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Studio-X is a global network of laboratories for exploring the future of the built environment.

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, a noted First Amendment scholar, has established the Columbia Global Freedom of Expression and Information Project, a new initiative joining international experts and activists with the University’s faculty and students to survey, document and strengthen free expression. He has named Agnès Callamard, a distinguished human rights advocate who was director of the organization ARTICLE 19, as executive director of the Project. “Looking around the world today and seeing the pervasiveness of censorship in so many forms and societies, none of us…

A climate scientist who has suggested how mountain building can lower Earth’s thermostat and why ice ages sometimes wax and wane at different speeds has been awarded one of geology’s oldest and most coveted prizes: the British Wollaston Medal.