Executive Committee

Sen. Simon Ogundare is an MD-PhD student at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a graduate of Columbia College (’24), where he studied neuroscience while participating in the John Jay and Laidlaw Scholars’ Programs. Born in New York and raised between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, he brings a transnational perspective to questions of health, identity, and structural inequality. 

Simon's research background explores the neuroscience of comorbidity, examining how chronic pain and depression co-occur, and how their neural representations become entangled in the brain. Elected to the University Senate in 2025, Simon is committed to transparency, structural accountability, and expanding student participation in university governance. His platform emphasizes cross-campus coalition-building and ensuring that the University Senate reflects the needs of students across CUIMC, especially during a time of active review of the University Senate’s structure and scope. 

Simon’s approach to advocacy is shaped by his international background, his work as a science communicator, and his commitment to building a community that welcomes and celebrates – rather than dilutes – diverse voices. He believes healing, education, and institutional change are fundamentally communal processes: each requiring trust, shared power, and sustained dialogue. On the University Senate, Simon aims to strengthen avenues of communication through existing and novel channels, strengthen the links between Morningside and CUIMC, and push Columbia toward a more inclusive, responsive, and transparent future. He sees the University Senate not just as a governance body, but as a platform for collective action: a space to organize across schools, challenge institutional inertia, and push for a Columbia that truly reflects the values, needs, and voices of its community.

Sen. Sarah Hansen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry. Since joining Columbia in 2004 she has taught introductory chemistry lecture/laboratory courses and supports pedagogical development through graduate seminars and workshops. Her aim is to foster a collaborative approach to learning, shifting the teacher into the role of facilitating meaningful engagement between students while decreasing the distance between chemistry in and out of the classroom. Dr Hansen was the 2024 recipient of the Division of Natural Sciences Award for Teaching Excellence.

Her research focuses on reflection, visual engagement, and laboratory learning. She co-edited Eye-tracking for the Chemistry Education Researcher (2019) and serves on the advisory committee for Columbia’s Science of Learning Research Initiative.

From 2020-2023 she served on the Lecturer Advisory Council from 2020-2023, chairing for two years. Through advocacy and committee work she actively seeks opportunities to ensure the unique and vital perspectives of untenured faculty at the University are included in Governance and Policy decisions.

Sen. Nicole B. Wallack, PhD, is the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program (UWP) and Senior Lecturer in Discipline in the Department of English and Comparative Literature, which she joined in 2003. She co-chaired the Lecturers Study Committee, which created the report on the status of lecturers for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences in 2018. She was the inaugural chair of the Lecturers Advisory Committee in 2020. Until summer 2025, she served as the first lecturer elected to the PPC. In each of her roles, she has advocated for non-tenure eligible faculty has encouraged their full participation in faculty governance in their home departments and across schools and campuses at Columbia. She has served previously on the Committee on the Status of Women and the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Senate as a non-tenure-eligible representative for the Humanities. Her research and teaching interests are in the fields of essay studies, writing studies, composition and rhetoric, the impact of AI on writing programs, American literature, and teacher education. In fall, 2025, she was elected to Co-chair the NTTOT caucus and served on the Executive Committee of the Senate.

Sen. Nasser Odetallah is an MFA student in Film at the Columbia School of the Arts. Originally from Oklahoma, he holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia School of General Studies (’25), studying English, film & media studies, and Mediterranean studies, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University (’20), studying chemistry and molecular biophysics & biochemistry. 

While at Yale and General Studies, Nasser served in many leadership roles, supporting students and representing student interests to staff, administration, and faculty, most notably serving as Columbia General Studies Student Body President during the 2023-2024 academic year. Nasser is primarily interested in strengthening the voice of and engagement with students on central university issues including freedom of speech and academic freedom; financial support for students; campus access and space; expansion of key student services such as dining, health services, housing, and study spaces; and accountability from faculty and administrators in repairing institutional trust and integrity. Coming from Palestinian-American, Puerto Rican, LGBTQ+, and first-generation, low-income (FGLI) backgrounds, Nasser has experience working across student populations and interests to effect positive and long-lasting change at the university-level. Nasser looks forward to working with the other students on the University Senate to create positive change and continue to add the student voice on critical university-wide issues.

Sen. Liane Bdair is a student at Columbia College, studying economics and political science on a pre-law track. She serves on the executive board of Turath, the Arab Students Association, where she helps foster community and cultural pride among Arab-identifying students. Additionally, Liane’s Palestinian- American Background makes her deeply committed to equity, inclusion, and student advocacy. As a University Senator, Liane is focused on promoting shared governance, increasing transparency from the administration, and ensuring that student perspectives are meaningfully included in decision-making processes. With a new perspective and a dedication to building bridges between administration and student groups, she is passionate about amplifying voices that are often overlooked in university policy and governance conversations.

Sen. Joseph Slaughter specializes in literature, law, and socio-cultural history of the Global South (particularly Latin America and Africa). He’s especially interested in the social work of literature—the myriad ways in which literature intersects (formally, historically, ideologically, materially) with problems of social justice, human rights, intellectual property, and international law.

His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Public Voices Fellowship, Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award. His book Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham UP, 2007), which explores the cooperative narrative logics of international human rights law and the Bildungsroman, was awarded the 2008 René Wellek prize for comparative literature and cultural theory. His essay, “Enabling Fictions and Novel Subjects: The Bildungsroman and International Human Rights Law,” was honored as one of the two best articles published in PMLA in 2006-7. He was elected to serve as President of the American Comparative Literature Association in 2016.

His essays and articles include : “World Literature as Property” in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics; “However Incompletely, Human” in The Meanings of Human Rights: Philosophy, Critical Theory, Law; “‘It’s good to be primitive’: African Allusion and the Modernist Fetish of Authenticity” in Modernism and Copyright; “The Enchantment of Human Rights; or, What Difference Does Humanitarian Indifference Make?” in Critical Quarterly; “Vanishing Points: When Narrative Is Not Simply There” in The Journal of Human Rights; “‘A Mouth with Which to Tell the Story’: Silence, Violence, and Speech in the Narrative of Things Fall Apart” in Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe; “Master Plans: Designing (National) Allegories of Urban Space and Metropolitan Subjects for Postcolonial Kenya” in Research in African Literatures; “Introducing Human Rights and Literary Form; Or, the Vehicles and Vocabularies of Human Rights,” co-authored with Sophia A. McClennen, in Comparative Literature Studies; “A Question of Narration: The Voice in International Human Rights Law” in Human Rights Quarterly; “Humanitarian Reading” in Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy through Narrative. Slaughter is a founding co-editor of Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development.

He is co-editing a volume of essays, The Global South Atlantic, that explores some of the many social, cultural, political, and material interactions across the oceanic space between Africa and Latin America that have made it historically (im)possible to imagine the South Atlantic as a coherent region. He is currently working on two monographs, “Pathetic Fallacies: Essays on Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and the Humanities” and "New Word Orders: Intellectual Property and World Literature," which considers the role of plagiarism, piracy, and intellectual property regimes in the globalization of the novel, as well the work the novel might do to interrupt globalization and to resist monopoly privatization of cultural and intellectual creations.

President Jennifer L. Mnookin became the 21^st president of Columbia University on July 1, 2026. She assumed the role after serving as the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. President Mnookin is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has spent her career championing excellence in higher education by advancing world-class teaching and research, promoting accessibility and affordability, serving the public good, and training future generations to be thoughtful and engaged citizens. 

Mnookin’s academic work sits at the intersection of law and science and examines how scientific and expert evidence is evaluated and used within the legal system. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2020, she is one of the nation’s most-cited scholars in the field of evidence law, with core areas of focus including wrongful convictions, forensic evidence, and scientific and visual evidence. She recently served as co-chair of a 2024 expert report on facial recognition technologies for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. 

Mnookin comes to Columbia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), where she served as chancellor from August 2022 until May 2026 and as the Morgridge Friends Distinguished Chair of Leadership and Professor of Law. As chancellor, Mnookin led an institution of more than 50,000 students across 13 schools and colleges with more than 25,000 faculty and staff. Her tenure included significant investments in faculty hiring and research infrastructure and the launch of major cross-campus initiatives on artificial intelligence, interdisciplinary research, and intellectual pluralism and dialogue across difference. She also maintained a commitment to strengthening academic and support systems for students, grew UW-Madison’s research strength, secured additional resources for the university, and effectively navigated an uncertain federal funding environment and complex state politics. 

At UW-Madison, Mnookin made access and affordability a central priority. She established initiatives such as Bucky’s Pell Pathway, which guarantees full financial support for Pell-eligible Wisconsin residents, and expanded scholarship opportunities and academic support services, which have contributed to improved completion and graduation outcomes. Mnookin also helped boost philanthropic giving at UW-Madison, securing in 2025 the second-highest amount in contributions in the history of the institution, and in 2026 setting an all-time record for UW-Madison levels of philanthropy. 

Prior to leading UW-Madison, Mnookin served for seven years as dean of the UCLA School of Law, where she spent 17 years on the faculty and held the Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Chair in Law. As dean, Mnookin strengthened the law school’s scholarly profile, expanded clinical and experiential programs, and led record-breaking fundraising efforts in support of the school’s academic mission. While on the faculty, she also received the school’s highest teaching honor, the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. Before that, she was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

Mnookin previously served for six years on the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. She also co-chaired a working group advising the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on its report on the use of forensic science in the criminal courts.

Mnookin received her AB in social studies from Harvard University, her JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in history and social study of science and technology from MIT. She and her husband, political theorist Joshua Foa Dienstag, have two adult children.

Sen. Jeanine D’Armiento, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine in Anesthesiology, Director of the Center for Molecular Pulmonary Disease in Anesthesiology and Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, and Director of the Center for Lymphangiomyomatosis (LAM) and Rare Lung Disease. On the University Senate, Dr. D’Armiento chairs the Executive Committee and serves on a number of other committees. In 2008, Dr. D’Armiento completed a two-year appointment as Associate Dean for Gender Equity and Faculty Development, where she concentrated on professional development programs for women faculty. Dr. D’Armiento served as Executive Director of the Summer Program for Under-Represented Students at CUIMC for close to two decades. She serves on the Executive Board of the Alpha-1 Foundation, which she has chaired. Dr. D’Armiento also serves as a consultant to the Director of the Office of Rare Disease at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. 

Sen. Holger A. Klein is the Lisa and Bernard Selz Professor of Medieval Art History and Archaeology. He was educated in Art History, Early Christian Archaeology, and German Literature at the universities of Freiburg, Munich, London, and Bonn. His research focuses on the history and historiography of Late Antique, Early Medieval, and Byzantine art and architecture, especially the cult of relics and issues of cultural and artistic exchange in the Medieval Mediterranean. Professor Klein joined Columbia in 2000 and served the university in various academic leadership positions, namely as Chairman of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Director of Graduate Studies, Director of Art Humanities, Director of the Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies, and Faculty Director of Casa Muraro. He is the recipient of the 50th annual Mark Van Doren Award, the Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award, and the Wm. Theodore de Bary Award for Distinguished Service to the Core Curriculum.

On the University Senate, Sen. Klein is Vice Chair of the Executive Committee. He co-chairs the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee and serves on the Budget Committee. 

Sen. Henning Schulzrinne is the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Mathematical Methods and Computer Science and Professor of Electrical Engineering. On the University Senate, he serves on the Executive Committee and on the External Relations and Research Policy and Structure and Operations committees.

Professor Schulzrinne received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. He served as Chair of the Department of Computer Science from 2004 to 2009 and as Engineering Fellow, Technical Advisor, and Chief Technology Officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2010 until 2017.

Professor Schulzrinne has co-developed a number of protocol standards that are now used by almost all Internet telephony and multimedia applications, including RTP, RTSP and SIP. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Sen. Daniel Wolf Savin is Senior Research Scientist in the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory. Dr. Savin's work addresses cutting-edge questions in astrophysics, planetary science, and solar physics through observations coupled with laboratory astrophysics studies in atomic, molecular, condensed matter, and plasma physics. On the University Senate, he represents Professional Research Officers and chairs the Research Officers Committee. He serves on the Executive Committee, co-chairs the Structure and Operations Committee, and serves on the Budget Committee. Dr. Savin is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Astronomical Society, and the American Physical Society. In 2026 Dr. Savin was awarded the Laboratory Astrophysics Prize of the Laboratory Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.

Sen. Clarisa Long’s current research focuses on the intersection of intellectual property law and competition policy. She serves on the committee of The Center for Cybersecurity at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute and is a former faculty director of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology. She is a registered patent prosecutor with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to joining the Columbia Law faculty in 2005, Professor Long was the Class of 1966 Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. She has been a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a fellow at Harvard Law School, and an associate at Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C.

Before becoming an academic, Long was a molecular biologist who conducted research in New Zealand and the United States, including at the National Institutes of Health. Her books include Genetic Testing and the Use of Information (AEI Press, 1999) and Intellectual Property Rights in Emerging Markets (AEI Press, 2000).

Sen. Brent Stockwell is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology. He is a current Senator representing tenured natural sciences faculty in A&S, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Senate. He served on the Alumni Relations and Campus Planning and Physical Development Committees in the Senate. He has been on the Columbia faculty for 22 years, where he has consistently advocated for improved resources for science. In a series of papers from 2003 to 2012, Professor Stockwell discovered a previously unrecognized form of cell death that he termed ferroptosis. Professor Stockwell has received numerous awards, including being elected to the US National Academy of Medicine, the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, the Great Teacher of Columbia College Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, and the Dean Peter Awn Commitment to the LGBTQ community Faculty Award. He has been in the top 1 percent of highly cited researchers the last six years and was ranked among the top 50 scientists in the world by citations in 2025. He has published >200 scientific articles and received >50 research grants for >$40 million. He has served as Chair of the Educational Policy and Planning Committee in A&S, on the Columbia College and College of General Studies Joint Committee on Instruction, as Chair of the Provost's Advisory Committee on the Libraries Research Subcommittee, and as Chair of the Provost Faculty Advisory Committee. He has a BA in Chemistry and Economics from Cornell and a PhD in Chemistry from Harvard.

Angela V. Olinto is Professor of Astronomy and of Physics and Provost of the University. On the University Senate, Provost Olinto serves on the Executive Committee.

As Provost, Olinto is Columbia’s chief academic officer, and works to advance the academic distinction, intellectual richness, creativity, and integrity of the many facets of Columbia University. She supports the president in the development and implementation of the University’s strategic academic priorities, and leads the deans and faculty in their pursuit of research and teaching excellence.

Olinto directs the development and implementation of Columbia's academic plans and policies, and supervises the work of its schools, departments, institutes, and research centers, with the support of a dedicated team of Vice Provosts and staff of the Office of the Provost. She manages faculty appointments and the tenure review process, supports faculty recruitment and retention as the University collectively aspires to diversify talent and expand excellence, seeds new education initiatives, and heads efforts to lower barriers to cross-disciplinary initiatives that expand the individual and collective impact of our faculty and students. In addition to the Office of the Provost, she oversees a number of centers and institutes, offices, and other academic resources, including the Data Science Institute, University Libraries, the Italian Academy, and the Columbia University Press.

Prior to joining Columbia in March 2024, Olinto was Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences and the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. She previously served as Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics there from 2003 to 2006 and again from 2012 to 2017.

As a scholar, Olinto is best known for her contributions to the study of the structure of neutron stars, primordial inflationary theory, cosmic magnetic fields, the nature of the dark matter, and the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, gamma-rays, and neutrinos. She is the Principal Investigator of the POEMMA (Probe Of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) space mission and the EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) on a super pressure balloon (SPB) missions, and was a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory, all designed to discover the origin of the highest energy cosmic particles, their sources, and their interactions.

Olinto is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco medal at the rank of Commander in 2023, a Chaire d’Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de Recherche in 2006, the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 2015 at the University of Chicago. She received a BS in Physics from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1981, and PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987.

Sen. Adana A. M. Llanos, PhD, MPH, is a geneticist, cancer and molecular epidemiologist, and health equity scholar whose research bridges molecular biology and population health to illuminate the complex pathways linking social inequities and biological mechanisms of disease. She is a tenured Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and Co-Leader of the Cancer Population Science Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Llanos' pioneering studies have advanced understanding of the biological effects of adiposity-related hormones in breast cancer and have revealed how chronic stress, neighborhood deprivation, and racial segregation contribute to breast cancer inequities. Another exciting area of her research program focuses on investigating the health implications of long-term exposure to environmental toxicants, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals and carcinogens found in personal care products, including hair products.

Beyond her scientific contributions, Dr. Llanos is a dedicated mentor, educator, and community partner. She works closely with non-profit organizations to promote health advocacy, education, and survivorship, particularly among historically marginalized populations. Through her research, leadership, and service, Dr. Llanos is committed to advancing a more equitable future in which all people have the opportunity to thrive.