News Briefs

HAMILTON MEDAL: Andrew F. Barth ’83, BUS’85, a former chair of Capital Guardian Trust Co. and a committed advocate for the sport of wrestling, was honored with the 2025 Alexander Hamilton Medal on Nov. 20 at a black-tie dinner in Low Rotunda. Barth is an emeritus member of the Trustees of Columbia University and co-chair of the University’s Presidential Search Committee. The event raised more than $1.2 million, which will benefit Columbia College students by supporting the Core Curriculum and financial aid. Pictured above: Barth (second from left) with Dean Josef Sorett, Columbia College Alumni Association president Raymond Yu ’89, SEAS’90 and Acting President Claire Shipman ’86, SIPA’94.

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2026 John Jay Awards

The John Jay Awards Dinner, which celebrates alumni for their distinguished professional achievement, will be held on Wednesday, March 4. The 2026 honorees are Melissa de la Cruz ’93, New York Times bestselling author; Howard “Howie” Endelman ’87, the Bidyut K. Goswami Head Coach of Men’s Tennis, Columbia University; Christopher McGowan ’92, managing partner, CJM Ventures; and Amanda Peet ’94, actor, author and producer.

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Two Lions Awarded Rhodes Scholarships

A pair of prestigious honors were awarded to CC’26 students this past fall. Stanley Davis ’26 was named a 2026 Rhodes Scholar, and Fatima AlJarman AlNuaimi ’26, a UAE Rhodes Scholar. Davis was among 32 Americans selected, while AlJarman AlNuaimi was one of two from the UAE; she is also the first Columbian to receive this award.

Both Rhodes scholarships provide funding for two or three years of postgraduate study at Oxford.

Davis is a John Jay Scholar majoring in psychology; he has been actively involved in undergraduate research as a coordinator at The CyberPsych Lab, where he manages more than 50 researchers working on more than 10 concurrent studies. He is specifically interested in questions of trauma and resilience, with a focus on examining how early life experiences shape who we are. Davis has published research in these areas, exploring artificial intelligence-mediated psychological outcomes, legal rehabilitation beliefs and transdiagnostic approaches to current classifications of disease.

His study of trauma compelled him to work with Columbia’s Listening Tables, where he has been involved in facilitating campus dialogue, motivated by the conviction that healing is possible through human empathy. He has also served as a page and clerk in his home state of Tennessee, committed to grassroots democratic efforts and the importance of local changemaking.

Davis will study experimental psychology and comparative social policy at Oxford; his goal is to further understanding of the field of trauma studies and conflict transformation, as seen through the prism of policy and psychology. He plans to attend law school in the United States and use his interdisciplinary knowledge to serve and counsel others.

AlJarman AlNuaimi, a major in English and comparative literature, is interested in experimental literature emerging from the UAE, and is committed to developing platforms and programs for dialogue, exchange and collaboration. She was the editor-in-chief of Quarto Magazine, where she founded Columbia’s inaugural literary festival.

She is also the founding editor-in-chief of Unootha, a magazine that since 2018 has published the creative work of women across Southwest Asia and North Africa. Currently, AlJarman AlNuaimi is developing Arab Lit Review, a platform for literary criticism and experimentation with the region as its anchor. Since 2023, she has worked as a public programs and writing residency coordinator at Bayt AlMamzar, an independent arts space in Dubai, and is a founding partner of BAMBAM!, the art space’s publishing house.

At Oxford, AlJarman AlNuaimi plans to pursue an M.St. in world literature.

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Sherwin Award Recipients

The Gerald Sherwin Young Alumni Service Award, which honors individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service to the College’s young alumni community, were presented to Iyobosa Bello-Asemota ’19 and Maryam Hassan ’20 at the Columbia College Alumni Association Board of Directors meeting on Oct. 18.

Bello-Asemota is a VP at the San Francisco-based hedge fund ValueAct Capital, where she invests in public companies and partners with leadership teams on long-term value creation. As part of the Columbia community, she is secretary of the Executive Committee of Columbia College Women; sits on the board of the Young Leaders Council; and is a member of the Alumnae Legacy Circle. Bello-Asemota also co-chaired the Class of 2019’s Reunion Committee; has hosted in-person programs in the Bay Area and virtually with YLC and CCW; served for more than two years on the Alumni Representative Committee; mentored students through the Odyssey Mentoring Program; represented the College at prospective-student events; and has served as project leader for the Young Alumni Scholarship Fund.

Hassan is a founding business development representative at Laurel, an artificial intelligence timekeeping company. She is deeply involved with Columbia in a variety of capacities, from co-chairing the Class of 2020’s Reunion Committee to being the youngest alumni member of the Columbia Alumni Association Board, where she chaired the Recent Alumni and Student Relations Committee and currently chairs Alumni Leaders Experience 2026, an annual alumni conference to celebrate volunteerism and leadership. Hassan is committed to mentorship for students and recent alumni, serving as an Odyssey Mentor and former co-chair of the CCW Mentoring Committee; she returns to campus often to support student-athletes, attend events and engage in phone calls with new graduates navigating next steps.

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Three Columbians Named 2026 Marshall Scholars

Joseph Karaganis ’26, Theo Taplitz ’25 and Brianna Przywozny SEAS’25 have been named 2026 Marshall Scholars. It is the first time that three Columbians have been selected for this award in a single year.

Established in 1953 to help strengthen ties between the United States and the United Kingdom, the Marshall Scholarship provides for two years of postgraduate study in the U.K. Candidates must be nominated by their university before going through an intensive application process. Selection criteria include academic merit, leadership potential and ambassadorial potential.

Karaganis is majoring in philosophy and political science and minoring in history. He is interested in the ethics of artificial intelligence, the philosophy of mind and the political economy of information. On campus, Karaganis has been managing editor of the Columbia Political Review and currently co-chairs the Academic Awards Committee. He was previously the co-director of the Columbia Political Union’s Reachout initiative. Last summer, Karaganis taught political philosophy to high schoolers through Columbia’s Freedom and Citizenship program, and to incarcerated students on Rikers Island with the Justice-in-Education Initiative. As a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, he will pursue a B.Phil. in philosophy.

Taplitz is a director and writer working across film and theater. A John Jay Scholar, he majored in English and creative writing, graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received the Robert W. Goldsby prize for theater and the Ellis Avery Prize for Creative Writing, directed main-stage productions including Equus and Henry IV, and co-led the Writers House, where he organized readings, facilitated workshops and edited a collaborative anthology bridging student work across disciplines. Through the Marshall Scholarship, Taplitz intends to pursue an M.A. in scriptwriting at the University of East Anglia and an M.A. in filmmaking (Directing Fiction) at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Przywozny recently earned her M.S. in biomedical engineering; as an undergraduate, she was co-director of the Columbia Space Initiative’s Astrobiology Mission, where she led students in investigating the effects of simulated microgravity on biological systems. As a member of the Prives Lab, Przywozny developed algorithms for mutual exclusivity analysis to determine the role of alternate mutated genes in “TP53 wild-type” cancers, and as a member of the Biomaterials and Interface Tissue Engineering Lab, she developed scaffolds for articular cartilage regeneration in osteoarthritis as well as characterized the intervertebral disc and its tissue interfaces. In addition to being a researcher, Przywozny was a peer tutor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and an Urban New York trip leader. She was named the 2025 recipient of the Richard Skalak Memorial Prize. Through the Marshall Scholarship, Przywozny seeks to pursue a D.Phil. in engineering science at Oxford.