Columbia College has announced the names of 93 seniors who will be initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, the national honor society, on May 20. The students were chosen by a faculty selection committee of Phi Beta Kappa members based on the breadth, depth and rigor of their academic programs, as well as recommendations from faculty members who have worked closely them.
Nilay Kumar CC ’15, a mathematics and physics major from Potomac, Maryland, has received a prestigious Josephine De Karman Fellowship, which recognizes and assist students whose scholastic achievements reflect those of the late Dr. Theodore Von Karman, a world renowned aeronautics expert and teacher and the first director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.
Columbia College Dean James J. Valentini and Columbia Engineering Dean Mary C. Boyce have announced that, after a comprehensive examination of student affairs services during the recent search for a Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs, they will instead restructure Columbia Student Affairs, the joint division that supports undergraduate students through advising, student engagement, residential life, and other co-curricular programming.
Nzingha Prescod CC ’15, Columbia women’s fencing squad captain and a member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic fencing team, was selected as one of Glamour’s Top 10 College Women.
Amirah Sequeira CC ’12 has received a prestigious Gates-Cambridge Scholarship, awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the United Kingdom to pursue graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge.
The Columbia College faculty Committee on Honors, Awards and Prizes has announced the names of the Class of 2014 valedictorian and salutatorian. The valedictorian is Margarete Diaz Cuadros, a biochemistry major with a concentration in evolutionary biology of the human species, originally from Lima, Peru. The salutatorian is Samuel Walker, a comparative literature and society major with a concentration in philosophy from Westchester, N.Y.
On April 17, students were honored for their leadership and involvement on campus at the 2014 King’s Crown Leadership Excellence Awards Ceremony in Roone Arledge Auditorium.
Seven startups run by Columbia College young alumni — BoardRounds, Ply, Longneck & Thunderfoot, Rawr Denim, Shout, ModaBound and Bundle Organics — were chosen to take part in the new Columbia Startup Lab in SoHo. The lab will provide a dedicated Columbia-only shared workspace on the street level of the eight-floor Varick Street location of WeWork, a building that currently houses — and was the site of the founding of — Reddit. These startups are seven of a total of 31 teams of Columbia alumni from the College, Engineering, SIPA and the Business School that will be housed at the WeWork space beginning in June.
Twelve first-year students in Columbia College, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and General Studies have received 2014 Presidential Global Fellowships. The students, whose academic interests range from Art History, French and Sociology to Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, and Industrial Engineering to Physics, Sustainable Development and Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, were selected from a pool of more than 100 for the University’s new undergraduate global summer program.
Students will honor Professor of Mathematics Robert Friedman with the 2014 Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching, which recognizes a faculty member’s “humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership,” and Professor of History Rashid Khalidi with the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award, given to a member of Columbia’s faculty whose book was published in the previous year, for his book Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, at an awards ceremony in Low Library on May 5. The honorees are selected annually by a student committee to honor faculty members for their contributions in the classroom and in print.