Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ List, Moskowitz Prize, Golden Globes, and More Milestones for Columbians

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 Dec. 18, 2025, to Jan. 21, 2026.

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. 

FACULTY

ARTS & HUMANITIES

Zainab Bahrani, Edith Porada Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, is the winner of the 2025 CAA/American Institute for Conservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation. This award recognizes those who have enhanced the understanding of art through the application of knowledge and experience in conservation, art history, and art.

Sam Bett, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Writing at the School of the Arts, was recently awarded the Commissioner’s Award by the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs, which recognizes achievements in arts and humanities. The committee specifically cited the Dagger Award for Crime Fiction in Translation, which Bett was awarded in July 2025 for his translation of Akira Otani’s queer yakuza thriller “The Night of Baba Yaga.”

Andrew Dolkart, Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), and GSAPP alumni Ken Lustbader, Jay Shockley, and Amanda Davis will receive the Preservation League of New York State Pillar of New York Award for their transformative work documenting and preserving New York City’s LGBTQ historic sites.

Farah Jasmine Griffin, University Professor, is the winner of the 2025 Darwin T. Turner Award, presented by the African American Literature and Culture Society. The award is presented to celebrate excellence in scholarship in African American culture and literature. 

Andrés Jaque, Dean of GSAPP, and Professors Sumayya Vally and Juan Herreros have been named to the Architectural Digest AD100 list for 2026, recognizing their contributions to contemporary architectural practice.

Joanna Stalnaker, Professor of French, has been awarded the Isobel Grundy Prize from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The article is drawn from her new book, The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death. 

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Four faculty and one postdoc from Columbia Nursing have joined the New York Academy of Medicine’s latest class of fellows. Helen Young CUPHSONAA Professor of Nursing Gregory Alexander, Assistant Professor Melissa Beauchemin, Assistant Professor Ashley Graham-Perel, Assistant Professor Monica O’Reilly-Jacob, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Michele Flynch were inducted at the 178th Anniversary Discourse, Annual Awards, and Meeting of the Fellows, held in December.

Daniel Belsky, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research for his contributions to the field of behavioral medicine. 

Melissa Beauchemin, Assistant Professor of Nursing, has received funding from the Oncology Nursing Society to support her work to improve access to fertility preservation among adolescents and young adults with cancer. 

Greg Bryan and Kathryn Johnston, Professors of Astronomy, and Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, were named American Astronomical Society Fellows. Fellows are recognized for original research and publications, innovative contributions to astronomical techniques or instrumentation, significant contributions to education and public outreach, and noteworthy service to astronomy and to the Society itself.

Alvaro Curiel-Garcia, Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Medicine at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, received the “NextGen Stars” award from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Gary Miller, Adrienne Block Professor of Environmental Health Sciences; Pam Factor-Litvak, Professor of Epidemiology; and Matthew Perzanowski, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, received $7,937,961 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Advanced training in environmental health and data science: molecules to populations.”

Meghan Turchioe, Assistant Professor of Nursing, received the Marie Cowan Promising Early Career Investigator Award from the American Heart Association (AHA). Postdoctoral Research Fellow Chloe Kang received an AHA Travel Award.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Hassan Afrouzi, Associate Professor of Economics; Stephanie McCurry, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History in Honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower; Adam Reich, Professor of Sociology; and Calvin Thrall, Assistant Professor of Political Science, have all been awarded 2026 Division of Social Science Awards for Excellence and Commitment to Teaching.

Ashraf Ahmed and Lev Menand, Associate Professors of Law, received the 2025 Award for Scholarship in Administrative Law from the American Bar Association Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice for their article, "The Making of Presidential Administration," in the Harvard Law Review.

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, received multiple honors in the fall: the President’s Service Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Justice & Impact Award from the National Bar Association, and the Sojourner Truth Legacy Award from the National Bar Association.

Caroline Flammer, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, and Geoffrey Heal, Donald C. Waite III Professor Emeritus of Social Enterprise in the Faculty of Business, were awarded a 2025 Moskowitz Prize at Northwestern University. The award goes to the authors of high-quality, applicable research in sustainable finance.

Kellen R. Funk, Michael E. Patterson Professor of Law, received the Legal History Article of the Year Prize from the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation for “Bail at the Founding,” an article he co-wrote in the Harvard Law Review.

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

Nicolás Depetris (SEAS’27), Albaraa Gebril (CC’27), Julissa Hernandez Alejandre (CC’27), and Chanel Matsumoto (CC'27) were named Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholars. The scholarship is a two-year leadership initiative that invests in undergraduates who are driven by a commitment to social impact and who have already taken active roles in supporting their communities. 

Jennifer Morgan (LAW’26) received a Skadden Fellowship, a two-year program for recent law graduates to pursue public interest law on a full-time basis. Morgan will work with A Better Balance, a nonprofit organization that promotes justice in the workplace, beginning next fall.

ALUMNI

Twenty-one Columbians secured a coveted spot on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list for 2026. The Columbia Alumni Association compiled a full list of Columbians named here.

At the 2026 Golden Globes, Adolescence producer Dede Garner (CC’90) won for Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television; The Pitt with actor Supriya Ganesh (CC’19) won for Best Television Series, Drama; and actor Timothée Chalamet (CC student 2013-14) won for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, for Marty Supreme. Check out the full list of Columbians whose projects were nominated.

Several Columbia filmmakers have films at the Sundance Film Festival this month: Suzanne Andrews Correa (SOA'17), Albert Berger (SOA'83), Sam Bisbee (CC'90), Apoorva Guru Charan (SOA'18), Nicole Holofcener (SOA'88), Hannah Janal (SOA'15), Hossein Keshavarz (SOA'05), Priyanka Krishna (SOA Student), Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Mynette Louie, Raman Nimmala (SOA'25), and Olive Nwosu (SOA'21).