Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Awards, Top Patent-Making University, Historic Preservation Award, and More Accolades 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 Feb. 19 to March 19, 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. 

INSTITUTIONAL

Columbia University ranked among the National Academy of Inventors’ Top 100 U.S. Universities Granted Utility Patents in 2025, with 74 patents. 

611 W. 112th Street, a new undergraduate residence hall resulting from a building-wide renovation at a long-vacant property, has received the esteemed Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from New York Landmarks Conservancy in recognition of the restoration and adaptive use of a historic building. 

FACULTY

Eight faculty members received this year’s 2026 Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for outstanding teaching, groundbreaking research and artistic expression, and exceptional mentorship: Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Principal Investigator, Zuckerman Institute; Jessica Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Lynn Nottage, Professor of Theatre, School of the Arts; Kerstin Perez, Lavine Family Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences; Adam Reich, Professor of Sociology; Elizabeth Scharffenberger, Senior Lecturer in Classics; Dennis Yi Tenen, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature; and Michael Woodford, John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy. 

ARTS & HUMANITIES

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 N. Thrall, Assistant Professor of Political Science, have all received 2026 Awards for Excellence and Commitment to Teaching from the Division of Social Science, in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Amale Andraos, Professor and Dean Emerita of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, has received the Academic Excellence Award from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.

Nikolas Kakkoufa, Senior Lecturer, Classics; Nicole Meily, Director of Academic Administration and Finance, Philosophy Department; Molly Murray, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Kosmas Pissakos, Administrative Assistant, Latin American and Iberian Cultures; and Shaoyan Qi, Senior Lecturer in Chinese, have all received 2026 Awards for Community Building and Engagement from the Division of Humanities, in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Laura Kurgan, Professor of Architecture, has won the 2026 National Design Award for Digital Design from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, is a co-winner of the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. The award honors outstanding contributions in each winner’s field.

Ruth Opara, Assistant Professor of Music, and Joanna Stalnaker, Professor of French, have received the 2026 Award for Academic Excellence from the Division of Humanities, in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The award honors their work as academic leaders and their outstanding contributions throughout the past year.

Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, received the 2026 René Wellek Prize for his book, Atrocity: A Literary History, from the American Comparative Literature Association.

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

Michio Hirano, Lucy G. Moses Professor of Neurology, was awarded the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s (MDA) Legacy Award for Achievement in Clinical Research. Each year, MDA presents awards to recognize people who are making a lasting impact on research and care for people living with neuromuscular diseases.

Silvia Martins, Professor of Epidemiology, received the 2026 Robert Balster Mentorship Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) for her sustained and meaningful mentorship of trainees and early-career investigators, and dedication to cultivating diverse talent and promoting rigorous, impactful epidemiologic research. CPDD is the oldest and largest organization in the U.S. dedicated to advancing a scientific approach to substance use.

Andrew Millis, Professor of Physics, received the 2026 John Bardeen Prize. The Prize was established in 2001 by the organizers of the International Conference on the Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity (M2S) and is bestowed to researchers for theoretical work that has provided significant insights on the nature of superconductivity and has led to verifiable predictions.

Elizabeth Oelsner, Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medicine, and Elaine Wan, Esther Aboodi Associate Professor of Medicine in Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology, have been elected members of the American Society for Clinical Investigation for their outstanding scholarly achievement.

Carrie Shawber, Associate Professor of Reproductive Sciences, and a team of researchers have been awarded a contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for up to $8.7 million over two years to create genetic tests to speed the diagnosis of patients born with defects in the lymphatic system.

Yasutomo Uemura, Professor of Physics, received the 2026 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Prize. The Prize was established in 2000 by the organizers of the International Conference on the Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity (M2S) and is bestowed to researchers for exceptional experiments that "illuminate the nature of superconductivity other than materials."

POSTDOCS & STUDENTS

Sylvie Binder (CC’22, LAW’29), Stefan de Villiers (LAW’28), and Aidan McIntyre (LAW’28) placed first at the 2026 Jeffrey G. Miller National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition. The team was coached by Sam Brumer (LAW’27), Sam Hernandez (LAW’27), and Matthew Lewis (LAW’27).

Zainab Farooqi (SSW’27), Adya Jain (SIPA’27), Grace Rector (SIPA’26), Andrew Weaver (CC’26), and Ryan (Teddy) Wyche (CC’26) were named 2026 Critical Language Scholars for immersive summer programs to learn languages of strategic importance to the United States’ national security and economic prosperity.

Ryan Mazurkiewicz (LAW’28) and Nora Sullivan (LAW’28) placed first overall; Alex Newman (LAW’28) and Elijah Oaks (LAW’28) placed first for best brief and fourth for overall advocacy; and Alexandra Nelson (LAW’28) and Benjamin Singer (LAW’28) placed third for overall advocacy and fourth for best brief in the National Native American Law Students Moot Court Competition.

Olivia Schrager (LAW’25) and Yunseo Chloe Jo (LAW’26) won first and third place, respectively, in the 2025 Professor William R. Ginsberg Memorial Essay Contest presented by the New York State Bar Association's Environmental and Energy Law Section. This is the fifth year in a row that a Columbia Law student has taken first place in the contest, and the 12th year in a row that a Columbia Law student has been among the top three winners.

Jiayuan Tian (SIPA’27) was selected as one of the Top 100 “Leaders of Tomorrow” through the Global Essay Competition of the St. Gallen Symposium. This year’s theme is “Disrupted Age.” The symposium brings together global leaders from business, government, academia, and civil society alongside young participants for intergenerational dialogue on major global challenges. 

Wataru Yamamoto, Postdoctoral Student in Rafael Yuste’s Laboratory, has been selected as a Grass Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) this summer. Since its founding in 1951, the Grass Fellowship has brought promising early-career investigators to the MBL for 14 weeks of an independent, self-directed research project in neuroscience.

ALUMNI

Director and Co-Producer Joshua Seftel (National Arts Journalism Program Fellow '03) was awarded the Oscar for Best Documentary Short with “All the Empty Rooms.”