Photo courtesy the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Cellist Alisa Weilerstein '04 has been named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The foundation's website calls her "a young cellist whose emotionally resonant performances of both traditional and contemporary music have earned her international recognition." 

Weilerstein started performing as a preschooler and made her public debut with a professional orchestra at 13. While attending the College, she performed as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She has performed with orchestras throughout the United States and internationally, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Boston Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, among others. In 2009, she was appointed artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. The program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. Fellows are selected based on their exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. Weilerstein was one of 22 fellows selected this year. She will receive $500,000 over the next five years to be used in an area of her choice.

Read the MacArthur Foundation announcement.

Read a 2002 Columbia College Today profile of Weilerstein: "Cellist Balances Schoolwork with Global Performances."

Columbia College Rabi Scholars spent the summer of 2011 conducting extraordinary research in mathematics and the natural and physical sciences at Columbia and at other universities around the world. On Friday, these young scientists will present their work at the Sixth Annual Rabi Scholars Program Science Research Symposium.

The Rabi Scholars Program provides Columbia College science students the opportunity to develop their ideas and skills through research and faculty mentorship. The program was founded in 1989 by Columbia College and Columbia science faculty in memory of Professor I.I. Rabi, who the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics. The goal is to support and encourage young scientists by providing research opportunities during students' undergraduate careers.

Rabi scholars are recruited into the program when they apply to the College, based on their interest in science and their science research activities in high school. They are selected by the Rabi Faculty Committee because of their potential contributions to science during and after their time at Columbia. There are 40 Rabi Scholars, including first-year students.

On Friday, 25 students, ranging from first-years to seniors, will present their work in poster format at the annual research symposium. This year’s topics include the electronic properties of graphene, a carbon allotrope that exhibits curious electronic properties; the St. Petersburg Paradox, a game theory problem famous for having no numerical solution; the effect of bioglass particle size on cell behavior; the phenomenon of single molecule conductance; antimicrobial photodynamic therapy; high-energy neutrino spectra; super string theory; virus classification; quantum chromodynamics; and the use of confocal fluorescence microscopy.

The symposium will take place on Friday, September 23, from noon to 2 p.m. in the Satow Room of Lerner Hall.  All are welcome. 

Click here to find out more about the Rabi Scholars Program and the Rabi Scholars' research topics.   

Columbia has been ranked fourth place in U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of National Universities for the second year in a row. Harvard and Princeton are tied for first place this year, followed by Yale. Five schools are tied for fifth place: CalTech, MIT, Stanford, UChicago and UPenn. Duke is in tenth place. U.S. News' "Best Colleges 2012" rankings were released on September 13. 

U.S. News’ ratings were begun in 1983 and are based on peer evaluations, graduation and freshman retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate performance and alumni giving rate. Last year, the methodology was adjusted to add high school counselors to the peer evaluations and to give more weight to graduation and retention rates.

Columbia is listed under the "National Universities" category, which include universities that offer a full range of undergraduate majors, master's, and doctoral degrees, and are committed to producing ground breaking research. The University climbed from eighth place to fourth place last year.

For more information and to see the full list of rankings, visit http://www.usnews.com or http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best colleges/rankings/national-universities.