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What do you do for a follow-up when your first book is a bestseller that wins the National Book Circle Award, is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and gets turned into a movie that wins four Academy Awards?

Special from The Record

Not many undergraduates who hop a ship to Alaska can expect to become part of a research team examining the earthquake risks of the Pacific Ring of Fire. But over the summer, a group of Columbia research scientists and undergraduates did just that, spending time aboard a National Science Foundation ship operated by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and mapping the ocean floor off the Aleutian Islands.

In a soundproof room in Pupin Hall, a futuristic-looking metallic apparatus is creating three-dimensional images of a material that may one day power a new generation of smaller and faster electronic devices. The miracle substance is graphene, a single-atom-thick sheet of carbon that has captivated scientists since it was first isolated in 2004.The imaging device is operated by physicist Abhay Pasupathy, who is studying the properties of graphene. He and his team want to understand how the ultra-thin, super-strong material behaves so scientists can continue to develop practical applications…

When T.D. Lee was hired by Columbia as an assistant professor in 1953, he joined what was arguably one of the greatest physics departments ever assembled. And in short order, the 26-year-old theoretical physicist became a legend himself.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has announced the 2011 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for outstanding reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean.

In an ongoing effort to broaden the University’s already extensive international perspective, Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger signed an agreement on Sept. 12 to establish a fifth Columbia Global Center, in Santiago, Chile—the University’s first in Latin America. 

As the city, nation and world pause to remember the 10th anniversary of the destruction and heroism that will forever mark lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., Columbia University is commemorating the occasion with a range of programs rooted in its mission as a place of learning, research and reflection.

Out of the wreckage of the World Trade Center attacks and the events of 9/11 came some of the first large-scale research of mass trauma. The resulting findings have led to a broader understanding of how post-traumatic stress disorder can affect hundreds of thousands of people, not just individuals.

Dr. Sandro Galea, chair of the epidemiology department at the Mailman School of Public Health, is one of the leading researchers on the topic, having written some 50 articles on the subject of 9/11 and trauma.

Large-scale catastrophes such as war, earthquakes or floods typically occur…

A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced tool-making methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The University is open today, Monday, August 29, and staff are expected to report to work.

When the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns decided to collaborate on a movie about a deadly virus that ignites a global pandemic, they were determined that the film be firmly grounded in scientific fact, not science fiction. So Burns, the writer behind The Bourne Ultimatum, began consulting scientists for guidance. “When I asked who was the best virologist … who could help me create a believable virus and help spin out the ramifications," Burns remembers being told one name "without hesitation": Dr. Ian Lipkin.

Scott Snyder has always loved red wine, and recently his interest has extended well beyond the dinner table. Several years ago, the associate professor of chemistry became fascinated by the “French paradox,” the relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease among the French despite a diet high in saturated fats.

Scott Snyder Image credit: Eileen Barroso/Columbia University

The phenomenon has been linked to red wine consumption, and almost all the evidence points to a chemical called resveratrol. Although scientists have…

In the first study of its kind, researchers have linked a natural global climate cycle to periodic increases in warfare.

The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that shook central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon is one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the East Coast since 1897, and was comparable in strength to a quake on the New York-Canadian border in 1944, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.