Executive Committee

Zhezhen Jin has been a faculty member in the Department of Biostatistics since 2000, where his research interests include survival analysis, resampling methods, longitudinal data analysis, and nonparametric and semiparametric models. Dr. Jin has collaborated on research in the areas of cardiology, neurology, cancer and epidemiology. He serves as associate editor for Lifetime Data Analysis, Contemporary Clinical Trials, Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods, and is on the editorial board for Kidney International, journal of the International Society for Nephrology. Dr. Jin has published over 80 peer-reviewed research papers in statistical and medical journals. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Sen. William Duggan is the author of three recent books on innovation: Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (2007); Creative Strategy: A Guide for Innovation (2012); and The Seventh Sense: How Flashes of Insight Change Your Life (2015).  In 2007, the journal Strategy+Business named Strategic Intuition the "Best Strategy Book of the Year". Dr. Duggan has B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University, and twenty years of experience as a strategy advisor and consultant. 

Professor Duggan teaches innovation in three venues at Columbia Business School: MBA and Executive MBA courses, and Executive Education sessions. In 2014, he won the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. He has given talks and workshops on innovation to thousands of executives from companies in countries around the world. 

Sen. Turner is a practicing hospitalist and Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. Born and raised in Brooklyn, where he still lives with his family, he completed his undergraduate studies in Black Studies and Biology at Amherst College and received his medical degree from Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City. After completing his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at NYP/Columbia in 2002, Dr. Turner joined the faculty of Columbia University's Vagelos School of Physicians and Surgeons where he has been an Advisory Dean since 2010 and is Faculty Advisor for the Black and Latino Student Organization (BALSO). He has clinical and research interests in medical education and diversity in medicine.

Will Vanti is the Science and Engineering Librarian of Columbia University Libraries.  He is responsible for library collections in the areas of engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and statistics, and provides academic support to students, faculty, and staff researching these subjects as well as more general science support to Columbia's undergraduate and graduate students.  Will joined Columbia in January 2005 as a research assistant in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, and transitioned to the Libraries in December 2014.  On the University Senate, Will is a member of the External Relations and Research Policy committee.

Sen. William Hunnicutt joined Columbia in 2018 as Manager of the Carleton Laboratory in the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics after completing a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Will oversees research and teaching operations within the Carleton Lab, and conducts research in the area of cementitious materials, with a specific interest in construction materials used in nuclear power plants and their degradation due to radiation, as well as experimental measurement of nano- to millimeter scale mechanical properties.

Whitney Green '10SEAS, '13TC, is Director of International Admissions and Strategic Initiatives for Columbia Engineering. On the University Senate, Whitney serves on the Campus Planning Committee. She was the President of the Engineering Student Council from 2009 to 2010.

Sen. Wena Teng (CC’25) is a junior in Columbia College, studying history on the pre-law track. Born and raised in NYC, and attending Columbia as a proud First-Generation student, Wena can not just confidently tell you the best food spots to try, but also the importance of community relations, financial security, housing, and more. She is excited to take these experiences to the University Senate, with a focus on continuing to grow student life on campus and in our city through improvements in diversity, student affairs, mental health, and community solidarity.

Outside of the University Senate, Wena is Co-President of the Asian American Alliance, Director of the Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice Team of the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review, and a member of the Columbia Pops Orchestra and the Housing Equity Project. Though Wena is on the pre-law track, she is also a fan of tea culture, reading, and plays the Chinese harp (guzheng), and hopes to one day open a bookstore/teahouse.

Sen. Wellington Soares is a graduate student in the Journalism School, pursuing a concentration in politics, and a Lemann Fellow, focusing on Latin America and far-right harassment of public school teachers. 

Wellington is a Brazilian gay journalist and communications professional, specializing in education, social justice, and LGBTQ rights, with more than a decade of experience in Brazil. He served as Communications Coordinator at the Lemann Foundation and his work has been published on national news sites and in magazines, including Nova Escola, Veja São Paulo, Exame, and Uol.

Weiping Wu is Vice Provost for Academic Programs, and Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia GSAPP. She served as Interim Dean of the School during spring and summer 2022. Professor Wu is also on the faculty of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Columbia Population Research Center. Before joining Columbia in 2016, she was Professor and Chair in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University.

Trained in architecture and urban planning, Professor Wu has focused her research and teaching on understanding urban dynamics in developing countries in general and China in particular. She is an internationally acclaimed urban and planning scholar working on global urbanization with a specific expertise in issues of migration, housing, and infrastructure of Chinese cities. Her publications include nine books, as well as many articles in top international journals. Her published work has gained an increasing public presence, particularly her book The Chinese City (now in second edition). It offers a critical understanding of China’s urbanization, exploring how the complexity of Chinese cities both conforms to and defies conventional urban theories and experience of cities elsewhere around the world. Her most recent book is China Urbanizing: Impacts and Transitions, gathering an interdisciplinary group of scholars to capture the phenomenon of urbanization in its historical and regional variations, and explores its impact on the country’s socioeconomic welfare, environment and resources, urban form and lifestyle, and population and health. It also provides new perspectives to understand the transitions underway and the gravity of the progress, particularly in the context of demographic shifts and climate change.

Professor Wu has had a number of academic leadership roles beyond the university setting. Currently, she is on the Planning Accreditation Board (PAB), which accredits university programs in North America leading to bachelor’s and master’s degrees in urban and regional planning. She was the President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) in 2017-2019, a consortium of university-based programs offering credentials in urban and regional planning, with more than 100 full-member schools in North America. Between 2008 and 2012, she was an editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research, ACSP’s flagship journal. She has been a member of the International Advisory Board for the Urban China Research Network and a member of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Humanities and Social Sciences panel, as well as serving on the editorial board of four journals. She is an editor of the SAGE Handbooks of Modern China series. In addition, she has provided consultation to the Ford Foundation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and World Bank.

Vishal Manve (Vishy) is a climate science and policy graduate student in the Climate School, with over eight years of experience in journalism, reporting, and policy. Vishy is a 2023 graduate of The Fletcher School at Tufts University and interned with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for COP 27.

Vishy is passionate about the intersectionality of transitioning to decarbonization pathways, climate finance, and issues of equity and justice in the international climate policy and development space, and believes that a just and equitable transition to a clean energy future is essential for the survival of our planet. At Columbia, Vishy is interested in campus-wide integration of sustainability efforts and centering and addressing issues of equity for students from diverse backgrounds, including international, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ students. Vishy believes in advocating for a better world through the power of storytelling and negotiations.

Sen. Tiffany Bryant has held a number of roles in government, including working for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the State of New York.  She currently works as a political consultant. She is the Chair of Columbia College Women and on the board of the Columbia Alumni Association. Previously Sen. Bryant served as the Vice President of Columbia's Black Alumni Council. She received her Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Columbia College in 2008.

Sen. Tianjian Zhu is an Enterprise Risk Management M.S. Candidate in the School of Professional Studies. Prior to his election to the University Senate, Tianjian served as the student representative of his graduate program and a member of the Career Design Lab Committee in the SPS Student Government. Tianjian is committed to cultivating a supportive environment that empowers students to thrive academically and professionally. As a University Senator, he pledges to prioritize initiatives aimed at enhancing communication between schools, improving accessibility to university resources, and fostering the development of professional resources.

Dr. Thirumaran Senguttuvan, MBBS, CCRP, is a Master of Public Health student at the Mailman School of Public Health. He holds a medical degree from Annamalai University in India (2013) and is also a clinical research professional. Dr. Senguttuvan worked as a physician and clinical researcher for a decade before enrolling in the School of Public Health. He has worked with two WHO collaborating research institutes of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for over five years as a medical officer and a medical scientist, and has a deep understanding of clinical research methodologies, regulatory procedures, safety reporting, and emergency management protocols. He has co-authored peer-reviewed articles and successfully coordinated randomized clinical trials and clinical studies in Tuberculosis, MDR-TB, HIV, and COVID-19, as well as epidemiological research, all while ensuring regulatory compliance and patient safety.

Beyond his professional journey, Dr Senguttuvan co-founded the ThiruTamizh Foundation, a non-profit, charitable organization that provides medical aid and education to underrepresented communities in Tamil Nadu, India. As a strong advocate of social justice and with a commitment to creating a socially just and equitable society, he aspires to contribute to the betterment of underrepresented communities by ensuring their education and healthcare needs are met.

Tao Tan received his B.A. and his M.B.A., both with honors, from Columbia University in the City of New York, where he was an Erwin Wolfson Scholar and a Toigo Foundation Fellow. In addition to serving on the Education Committee, Mr. Tan serves on the Board of Directors of the Columbia College Alumni Association, and teaches at Columbia Business School’s MBA and Executive Education programs.

Mr. Tan is Partner at Perception Capital Partners and Co-President of Perception Capital Corp. II and Perception Capital Corp. III, its affilated Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition companies. Mr. Tan has nearly 15 years of experience across finance, strategy and business transformation. Prior to joining Perception, Mr. Tan was an officer and a senior advisor to multiple investing and operating entities, and an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company’s New York office. At McKinsey, Mr. Tan led teams across the firm’s transformation and private equity and principal investor practices, where he drove comprehensive performance transformation and turnaround programs for companies with revenues ranging from $200 million to $25 billion across multiple industries and continents. Prior to McKinsey, Mr. Tan was a Senior Associate at Rose Tech Ventures, where he led the firm’s first-round investment in JUMP Bikes, which was subsequently sold to Uber in 2018. Prior to Rose Tech Ventures, Mr. Tan served in investment banking and capital markets roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. Mr. Tan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Economic Club of New York.

Sen. Susan Witte is a social worker and Professor at the School of Social Work, where she teaches courses in the clinical and advanced generalist methods of the master’s program, as well as in the doctoral program. In 2019, Dr. Witte was selected as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Provost’s Senior Faculty Teaching Scholars in recognition of her outstanding achievements in both teaching and research. Dr. Witte’s research and teaching involve prevention and treating HIV/AIDS, other STIs, intimate and gender-based violence, alcohol and drug use, and related social determinants of health and mental health.

Sen. Susan Bernofsky is Professor of Writing in the Faculty of the Arts, and Director of Literary Translation at Columbia in the School of the Arts Writing Program. On the University Senate, Sen. Bernofsky serves on the Rules of University Conduct Committee. 

A 2020 Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, 2019 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and past Guggenheim fellow, Sen. Bernofsky has translated more than twenty books including three novels and four collections of short prose by the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, as well as Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. She is the author, most recently, of Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser (Yale, 2021), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Past awards include the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize and the Hermann Hesse Translation Prize. Her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel The End of Days (2014) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize, the Ungar Award for Literary Translation, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. Her translation of Yoko Tawada’s novel Memoirs of a Polar Bear (2016) won the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2019 she received the Modern Language Association’s Lois Roth Award and the Friedrich Ulfers Prize. Her translation of Yoko Tawada’s novel Paul Celanand the Transtibetan Angel is forthcoming in 2023 from New Directions. She is currently working on a new translation of Thomas Mann’s monumental novel The Magic Mountain for W.W. Norton.

Sen. Steven Chaikelson is Professor of Professional Practice in Theatre Arts in the School of the Arts, where he runs the MFA Theatre Management and Producing Program, and serves as Co-Director of the T Fellowship for Creative Producers. He also teaches in Columbia Law School and Barnard College.

Through his company, Snug Harbor Productions, Steven general manages and/or produces on and off Broadway, around the United States, and internationally. His most recent producing credits include the Broadway and touring productions of The Band’s Visit, winner of 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical, the Off-Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, and Death of a Salesman in London. Steven has consulted for numerous not-for-profit arts institutions, including the Apollo Theatre, Cambodian Living Arts, and Peter Brook’s CICT.

Steven is a member of the New York State Bar, the Broadway League and Treasurer of the Off-Broadway League. He is a co-author of Theatre Law: Cases and Materials, the first law school textbook specifically devoted to theatre law, and has contributed to the theatre volumes of Entertainment Industry Contracts, published by LexisNexis. On the University Senate, he serves on the Campus Planning & Physical Development Committee.

Sen. Sophie Gasparian Chinchilla is a French and Brazilian student at the Graduate School of Business. She received her undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics from Columbia Collage (2018). Prior to returning to Columbia, Sophie worked in banking and consulting, with a focus on strategic and research projects. As a member of the University Senate, her areas of focus include streamlining health access, working with the University to improve infrastructure and space management, and helping bridge the gap for underrepresented groups. Her personal interests include photography, comedy, and South American literature.

Sen. Sonya Dyhrman is Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, with a Senior Staff affiliation at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. On the University Senate, Dr. Dyhrman represents the Natural Sciences Division of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and serves on the Education Committee. 

Dr. Dyhrman She received her Ph.D. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and was a tenured scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution prior to coming to Columbia in 2013. Her research focuses on marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry in a changing ocean, and she teaches classes in ecosystems, oceanography, and science communication.

Sen. Shelley A. Saltzman is Senior Lecturer in Languages in the School of Professional Studies’ American Language Program, where she has served as Associate Director for Partnerships since 2010. On the University Senate, Dr. Saltzman serves on the Executive and Education committees, and co-chairs the Tenure-Track and Off-Track Faculty Caucus.

Specializing in English for Specific Purposes, Dr. Saltzman has designed courses for several Columbia schools, including Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, General Studies, International and Public Affairs, Law, and Professional Studies. Dr. Saltzman has served on various University-wide committees including the Lecturer Advisory Committee, the Lecturer Review Guidelines Revision Committee, and the Standing Committee on Language Lecturers.  She has done work for the New York Review of Books, Susan Sontag, ETS, College Board, and IELTS USA, among others.A frequent presenter at campus, national, and international conferences, Dr. Saltzman has been awarded the international Global Legal Skills Award (2015); a Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award (2018), and the School of Professional Studies’ Team Impact Award (2022).

Sen. Shamika Dhar is a first-year MFA film student, concentrating in creative producing, from Bangalore, India. As an undergraduate at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Shamika served on the Student Senate. She is a former D1 tennis athlete who majored in theatre arts and technology with a double minor in communications and journalism.

https://barnard.edu/sga

Sen. Seth Kimmel studies the literatures and cultures of medieval and early modern Iberia. He earned his B.A. in Comparative Literature and Religion at Columbia and his Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining Columbia’s Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures in 2012, Seth spent two years as a member of Stanford University’s Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities. During the 2018-2019 academic year, Seth was the John Elliott Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. At Columbia, he is on the executive committee of both the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. On the University Senate, he serves on the External Relations and Research Policy Committee.

Sen. Sergine Delma's background as a Haitian immigrant drives her mission and has uniquely shaped her dedication to making a positive impact in healthcare and her devotion to service. Her keen interest in pursuing a doctoral degree as an advanced practice nurse is deeply rooted in her passion for healthcare advancements, advocacy, and community service. Throughout her undergraduate journey, Sergine channeled this passion for advocacy, serving as vice president of the student government association and a resident assistant, committed to both listening to and amplifying student voices.

Sergine's commitment to service extends beyond campus. Her involvement in volunteer work in Kisumu, Kenya, advocacy for immigrant rights in L.A/Mexico, and engagement with Partners in Health, a platform for meeting local government leaders to share experiences and to advocate for legislation that eliminates barriers to care, have further solidified her devotion to service. She is drawn to serving as the University Senator for the School of Nursing to advocate for student concerns and needs within the larger University framework. Representing student perspectives on various forums, aligns seamlessly with her past leadership roles and her mission to be of service to her community.

Sen. Serena Ng joined Columbia in 2007 and is the Edwin W. Rickert Professor of Economics. Dr. Ng's research focuses on empirical methods for economic data and she is managing editor of the Journal of Econometrics. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the International Association of Applied Econometrics. Dr. Ng has served on the Promotions and Tenure Committee (PTC), the Tenure and Review Advisory Committee (TRAC), the Advisory Committee on Conflict of Interest, the PPC subcommittee on recruitment, and various search committees. She is an affiliated member of the  Department of Statistics.

Scott Wright is Vice President for Campus Services, which includes many of the areas students experience outside of the classroom during their time at Columbia: Dining, Undergraduate Housing, Event Management, Lerner Hall, Transportation, Mail, Print and Environmental Stewardship. On the University Senate, Scott serves on the Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee.

A strong advocate for student interests, he enjoys the challenges of serving Columbia's diverse student community in the unique setting of New York City. Scott has been at Columbia since 1999. Prior to working at Columbia, Scott spent 15 years with ARAMARK, supervising food service and facility management for university clients in the western 11 states, including Alaska and Hawaii.

Scott is a native of Canada and grew up in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Hobart College.

Sen. Savannah Thais is Associate Research Scientist in the Data Science Institute with a focus on machine learning (ML). She is interested in complex system modeling and in understanding what types of information is measurable or modelable and what impacts designing and performing measurements have on systems and societies. This work is informed by her background in high energy particle physics and incorporates traditional scientific experiment design components such as uncertainty quantification, experimental blinding, and decorrelation/de-biasing methods. Her recent work has focused on geometric deep learning, methods to incorporate physics-based inductive biases into ML models, regulation of emerging technology, social determinants of health, and community education.

Dr. Thais is the founder and Research Director of Community Insight and Impact, a non-profit organization focused on data-driven community needs assessments for vulnerable populations and effective resource allocation. She is passionate about the impacts of science and technology on society and is a strong advocate for improving access to scientific education and literacy, community centered technology development, and equitable data practices. She was the ML Knowledge Convener for the CMS Experiment from 2020-2022, currently serves on the Executive Board of Women in Machine Learning and the Executive Committee of the APS Group on Data Science, and is a founding editor of the Springer AI and Ethics journal. Dr. Thais received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2019, where she served on the Graduate and Professional Student Senate for five years, including one term as president.

Sarah Witte is Research Collections and Services Librarian for Women and Gender Studies.

Sadia Safa is a first-generation senior at Columbia College from Queens, NYC. She is passionate about issues faced by students of color and other marginalized groups and has been deeply involved in various advocacy spaces including the Columbia College Student Council, the Alumni Association, Multicultural Affairs, and the University Life Events Council. She is particularly involved in the FLI space, serving on the First-Gen Advisory Board, FLI-Net, and founding the CCFLI branch of the Student-Alumni Ambassadors program. Sadia strives to make Columbia an inclusive and safe space for all students and hopes to use the Commission on Diversity to do just that.  

Sen. Ruth DeFries is a professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University in New York. She uses images from satellites and field surveys to examine how the world’s demands for food and other resources are changing land use throughout the tropics. Her research quantifies how these land use changes affect climate, biodiversity and other ecosystem services, as well as human development. She has also developed innovate education programs in sustainable development. DeFries was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, one of the country’s highest scientific honors, received a MacArthur “genius” award, and is the recipient of many other honors for her scientific research. In addition to over 100 scientific papers, she is committed to communicating the nuances and complexities of sustainable development to popular audiences, most recently through her book “The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis.” DeFries is committed to linking science with policy, for example through her involvement with the Environmental Defense Fund, Science for Nature and People, World Wildlife Fund, and reconciling conservation and development in central India.

Sen. Rosalba (Rosie) Savage (she/her/ella) is a second year policy track student in the School of Social Work. A United States Navy Veteran, Rosie served as a combat medic. She has twenty years’ experience in higher education, where she was a medical/ clinical assistant and allied health instructor. In addition to being a full-time student, Rosie, is a professional development and self awareness presenter and orientation leader. She volunteers as an examiner for Columbia’s Human Rights Initiative Asylum Clinic and as a reading mentor for underserved children with Read Ahead. She is a TEDx speaker, where she shares her story as a first gen and veteran. After Columbia, her goals are to advocate for underserved communities, and for MST survivors. She currently interns as a policy analyst for the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Sen. Roheeni Saxena is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health.

Dr. Saxena is a child and adolescent environmental cognitive neurotoxicologist, currently cross-training in the use of extracellular vesicles as potential biomarkers of CNS metals load in the context of neurodegenerative diseases. She previously earned a B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.P.H. from Columbia University’s Department of Sociomedical Sciences, and a CPH certification from the National Board of Public Health Examiners.

After her undergraduate work, Dr. Saxena trained at the National Institute of Mental Health’s Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience under Dr. Jacqueline Crawley, and at Harvard’s Behavioral Genetics Laboratory. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Dr. Saxena served as Associate Director of Educational Programs at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health where she contributed to the design and implementation of its novel integrated M.P.H. program. 

Sen. Richard Smiley is Professor of Anesthesiology (in Obstetrics and Gynecology) at CUMC. Dr. Smiley's research interests include the effect of genetic variation on the response to anesthesia, analgesia, and pregnancy. His recent work includes studies of the beta2 adrenoceptor on preterm labor and delivery, and on the hemodynamic response to spinal anesthesia. The effect of genetic variation in the mu-opioid receptor on pain and analgesia is also under investigation. On the University Senate, Dr. Smiley serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

Sen. Raimondo Betti is Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. On the University Senate, Professor Betti serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

Professor Betti's research focuses on the area of structural health monitoring, a crucial area for the safety, maintenance, and rehabilitation of our nation’s infrastructure system. His main interests range from the development of numerical algorithms for the identification of high-fidelity models of buildings and bridges to the development of methodologies for the assessment of the internal conditions of main cables of suspension bridges and for the estimation of their remaining strength. 

Professor Betti received a Laurea (Magna cum laude) in civil engineering from the Universita’ degli Studi di Roma, “La Sapienza” (Italy) and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Southern California. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and serves on the Board of Governors of the International Association of Structural Control and Monitoring. He also serves as Expert Advisor for Bridge Monitoring and Cable Corrosion for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 

Minouche Shafik is the 20th President of Columbia University in the City of New York and Professor of International and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs. She is an economist, policymaker, and higher education leader who has spent over three decades in leadership roles across a range of prominent international and academic institutions. From 2017 to 2023 she was President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a worldleading center for research and teaching in the social sciences.

Before her tenure at LSE, Shafik served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, where she led work on fighting misconduct in financial markets and managed a balance sheet of about $600 billion; Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, navigating turbulence surrounding the European debt crisis and the Arab Spring; Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, where she helped secure the UK’s commitment to giving 0.7% of GDP in aid and focused on fighting poverty in the poorest countries in the world; and the youngest-ever Vice President of the World Bank, where she worked on the institution’s first-ever report on the environment, led work on infrastructure and private sector investment, and advised governments in post-communist Eastern Europe. She is a trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Shafik received her BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, MSc from LSE, and DPhil from St Antony’s College, Oxford. She holds a life peerage and membership of the House of Lords, a damehood for services to the global economy, an honorary fellowship of the British Academy, and several honorary degrees.

She is married to Raffael Jovine, a molecular biologist, with whom she has two college-aged children and three adult stepchildren.

Peter Michaelides is the Vice President of Finance and Administration at Columbia University Facilities and Operations. He is responsible for the planning and administration of an annual operating budget of $450 million and a five-year capital budget of over $2 billion in approximately 300 buildings. In addition to serving as Facilities and Operations Chief Financial Officer, Peter is responsible for the administrative support to Facilities and Operations, including capital project administration, procurement, human resources, labor relations, management information systems, accounts payable, business process analysis, data analytics, reporting, internal controls and parking administration.

An employee of the University for over thirty years, his tenure began in the Office of Institutional Real Estate, where he held several positions of progressive responsibilities including as the Assistant Vice President of Planning and Project Administration. He served an integral role on the transition team responsible for leading the effort in the assessment, planning, and the consolidation of the University’s Institutional Real Estate and Facilities Management departments. Within Facilities and Operations, Peter’s portfolio as the Associate Vice President for Financial Services included the leadership in planning and administration of a multi-funded facilities operating budget for the Morningside and Manhattanville campuses, the off-campus residential portfolio, and external leases totaling over $450 million annually in approximately 300 buildings. In that position, he also led the Facilities and Operations data analytics and reporting team.

Peter holds a bachelor’s degree from Stony Brook University in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master of Business Administration in accounting from Baruch College. He is also an alumnus with a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.

Sen. Patrice Derrington has combined architecture and business training for a diverse career in real estate. Originally trained as an architect, followed by a Harvard MBA and Ph.D. at UC Berkley, she has held academic roles at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, and now as the Director of the Columbia MSRED Program and of its Center for Urban Real Estate. 

As a vice president in the JP Morgan Chase Real Estate Finance Group, Dr. Derrington worked on capital structuring. As a managing director at Victory Capital she managed David Rockefeller’s real estate development projects and investments for over fourteen years, started a REIT fund, served as a public REIT board member, and worked on restructuring distressed debt.  In 2002, Dr. Derrington was appointed by the Governor of New York State as the executive responsible for economic and social rehabilitation programs and revitalization funding at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in the aftermath of the 9/11 destruction. During a brief period in Australia, she was the CEO of two private development companies, an independent director of the listed property trust, Charter Hall, and advised local authorities as Chair of the Brisbane Inner City Advisory Committee.  

Paola Valenti is an economist with expertise in development economics, applied econometrics, applied microeconomics, and economics of antitrust and intellectual property. Dr. Valenti's has expertise in industries such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, industrial chemicals, consumer products, food, and computer hardware and software.

Dr. Valenti previously served as a consultant at NERA Economic Consulting, developing economic research and quantitative analysis. She has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank's Human Development Network and Social Protection Group, conducting research on poverty among the elderly in Bulgaria, Mauritius, Nepal, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Tajikistan.

Dr. Valenti holds laurea and Dottorato di Recerca degrees in economics from the University of Rome La Sapienza, an M.Sc. degree from CORIPE Piemonte, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Sen. Ovita Williams is Executive Director of the Action Lab for Social Justice and Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia School of Social Work. Dr. Williams worked with survivors of intimate partner violence in the forensic social work arena with ten years of experience in the Counseling Services Unit at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office. Prior to this position, Dr. Williams was a child and family therapist at the Children’s Aid Society. She is currently involved in racial equity facilitation and committed to social justice and ending gender-based violence. Dr. Williams has developed and facilitated interactive workshops for social workers, managers, and practitioners on facilitating courageous dialogues around our intersecting identities. At Columbia, Dr. Williams collaborates with students, alumni, faculty and administrators on the development of the course Decolonizing Social Work through a power, race, oppression, privilege (PROP) framework. The course centers undoing anti-Black racism and dismantling white supremacy culture.

For more information on this seat and election, please contact [email protected]

For more information on this seat and election, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]

Sen. Niall Bolger, Ph.D, is Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, where he teaches courses on social relationships, linear statistical models, and longitudinal data analysis. Dr. Bolger joined the University Senate in 2018 and serves on the Budget Committee.

Dr. Bolger's main research interests include adjustment processes in close relationships using intensive longitudinal methods and laboratory-based studies of dyadic behavior, emotion and physiology, and personality processes as they are revealed in patterns of behavior, emotion, and physiology in daily life. He is also interested in statistical methods for analyzing longitudinal and multilevel data.

Dr. Bolger is a Charter Member and Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and a member of the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology. He has served on National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grant review panels, and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, and is co-author of Intensive Longitudinal Methods: An Introduction to Diary and Experience Sampling Research.

Sen. Natalie Voigt, Ph.D., MSN, RN, is Assistant Professor of Nursing at CUMC. She has been a nurse for 17 years and has been working as faculty in the Masters Direct Entry Program for the past four years. Dr. Voigt prides herself on being an active listener, a servant leader, and helping to create environments that are inclusive for all participants. She believe in the importance of diversity of thought and respectful dissent. For the past two years, Dr. Voigt has served as University Senator on the External Relations and Research Policy Committee and on the Commission on Diversity. Her contributions include collaborating on the Resolution to Reaffirm the University’s Commitment to Excellence through Diversity, efforts to further clarify the process around student bias reporting to EOAA, and the Resolution to Include Caste as a Protected Category in Columbia University's Non-Discrimination Statement, co-sponsored by the Student Affairs Committee, the Commission on Diversity, and the Commission on the Status of Women. Dr. Voigt hopes to continue to bring this spirit of advocacy and inclusivity as a University Senator to serve the greater Columbia community and help make our campus a more equitable place where all may thrive.

Naomi Schrag is the Vice President for Research Compliance, Training, and Policy in the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research, and the University's Research Integrity Officer (RIO). She oversees work on issues such as research misconduct, conflict-of-interest and international research compliance, and collaborates closely with other offices across the University to develop integrated approaches to compliance and training.

Before joining Columbia in January 2006, Ms. Schrag practiced law for nine years, focusing on regulatory compliance and litigation involving biomedical research, with clients including pharmaceutical companies and not-for-profit organizations. Ms. Schrag also clerked in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Ms. Schrag graduated from New York University School of Law in 1995. Before entering law school, she worked on an oral history of the Holocaust for the Museum of Jewish Heritage. 

Nancy LoIacono is a Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. She is an environmental scientist and epidemiologist and has dedicated her career to understanding the effects of exposure to metals (in particular lead and arsenic) on children’s neurocognitive development and the development of adverse health outcomes (cardiovascular and lung disease and diabetes) in adults. She has worked on studies at both the molecular and population levels. She has been involved in several long-term prospective studies that have focused on identifying the adverse effects of exposure to metals, evaluating the effectiveness and safety of various interventions, and formulating strategies to reduce or eliminate these exposures and/or to mitigate their effects.

Sen. Nachum Sicherman analyzes the roles of education, job training, occupational and job mobility, moonlighting and retirement in the formation of careers. He currently studies the various effects of technological change on the U.S. labor market. In addition, Professor Sicherman works with different medical groups on using cost-benefit analysis in medical decision making. A faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, he is the recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Citicorp Behavioral Science Research Council. Sicherman teaches the core course Managerial Economics and the elective Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Sen. Muhsin al-Musawi is Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. On the University Senate, he serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

A renowned scholar and literary critic, Professor al-Musawi's teaching and research interests span several periods and genres. He is the author of thirty-nine books (including six novels) and over sixty scholarly articles. His books include: Scheherazade in England (1981); The Society of the Thousand and One Nights (2000); The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights (2009), Anglo-Orient (2000); The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence (2003); Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition (2006); Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict(2006); Islam on the Street: Religion in Arabic Literature (Rowman &Littlefield, 2009), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010; The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015); Arabic Disclosures: The Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022); The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His edited volumes include Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship (Brill, 2009); Arabic Literature for the Classroom (Routledge, 2017). He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics Edition of The Arabian Nights (2007). Professor al-Musawi is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature, the foremost academic journal in the field of Arabic literature. He has also served as academic consultant for numerous academic institutions in the United States and abroad.

Professor al-Musawi is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the highly prestigious 2002 Owais Award in Literary Criticism, the 2018 Kuwait Prize in Arabic Language and Literature , King Faisal Prize in Arabic Literature in English, Jan.2022; and Sheikh Zayed Book Award, May 2022.

Monica Goldklang, M.D., is Assistant Professor of Medicine (in Anesthesiology) in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Goldklang’s main area of research interest is in translational studies investigating the pathogenesis of smoking related lung disease. Her work involves understanding the mechanisms of protease upregulation in lung injury. She is currently working on a project investigating factors that alter MMP-13 expression and activity in lung disease. Moving forward, Dr. Goldklang has received NIH K08 funding to investigate the role of ion channels in smoking related lung disease. 

Sen. Minhas Wasaya is a second year MBA student in the Graduate School of Business. On the University Senate, Minhas is Vice Chair of the Student Affairs Committee and serves on the Executive and Budget committees. Originally from Houston, Texas, Minhas was Senior Underwriter for Power Generation & Renewables at AIG, where he worked in various roles over five years. In addition to his role in underwriting, Minhas supported corporate technology initiatives and mentored young talent. He has prior experiences in consulting and management roles in other industries. Minhas earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Houston, graduating Summa Cum Laude.

Outside of work, Minhas was active in community service through the Aga Khan Council for the United States, the Greater Houston Partnership, and the Harris County Democratic Party, having served in various initiatives, including education, civic engagement, youth development, and economic development.  At Columbia, Minhas is focused on entering the technology industry. He is also an active member of CBS Follies, the South Asian Business Association, and the Basketball Club.

Sen. Michael Bell is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Bell is founding Chair of the Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials, a multi-year research program hosted at GSAPP in coordination with Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart. Bell served as Director, Master of Architecture, Core Design Studios, (2000-14) and the Coordinator of the GSAPP Housing Design Studios (2000-11).

Bell’s architectural design has been commissioned and exhibited by The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Venice Biennale; the Architectural League of New York; the University Art Museum, Berkeley and has been shown in museums and galleries in Europe, Mexico and China. Architectural design by Bell is included in the Permanent Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His Gefter Press / Binocular House is included in American Masterwork Houses of the 20th and 21st Century by Kenneth Frampton. Bell has received four Progressive Architecture Awards. Books by Michael Bell include Engineered Transparency: The Technical, Visual, and Spatial Effects of Glass; Solid States: Concrete in Transition; Post-Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Engineering; Permanent Change: Plastics in Architecture and Engineering; 16 Houses: Designing the Public’s Private House; Michael Bell: Space Replaces Us: Essays and Projects on the City; and Slow Space. Bell is the editor of a monograph on the architecture of Stanley Saitowitz.

Sen. Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on environmental and energy law and founded and directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is a former Chair of the Faculty of Columbia’s Earth Institute and currently holds a joint appointment to the Columbia Climate School. Before joining the Columbia faculty in 2009, he practiced environmental law in New York City full time from 1979 to 2008, most recently as partner in charge of the New York office of a large law firm. He formerly chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. Gerrard is author or editor of fourteen books. The most recent are Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (with John Dernbach 2019) and Global Climate Change and U.S. Law (with Jody Freeman and Michael Burger, 3rd ed. 2023).

Sen. Marni Sommer, Dr.PH., MSN, RN, has worked in global health and development on issues ranging from improving access to essential medicines to humanitarian relief in conflict settings. Dr. Sommer's particular areas of expertise include conducting participatory research with adolescents, understanding and promoting healthy transitions to adulthood, the intersection of public health and education, gender and sexual health, and the implementation and evaluation of adolescent-focused interventions.

Dr. Sommer's doctoral research explored girls' experiences of menstruation, puberty and schooling in Tanzania, and the ways in which the onset of puberty might be disrupting girls' academic performance and healthy transition to adulthood. Dr. Sommer presently leads the Gender, Adolescent Transitions and Environment (GATE) Program, based in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. GATE explores the intersections of gender, health, education and the environment for girls and boys transitioning into adulthood in low-income countries and in the United States. GATE also generates research and practical resources focused on improving the integration of menstrual hygiene management and gender supportive sanitation solutions into global humanitarian response. 

Sen. María Uriarte is Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and Chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology.  On the University Senate, Dr. Uriarte co-chairs the Budget Committee.

Dr. Uriarteis an ecologist who studies how tropical forests recover from human agricultural activities and extreme climate events, such as hurricanes. Dr. Uriarte chaired the Policy Planning Committee, the elected faculty governance body of the Arts and Sciences, from 2018 to 2019. She was a Provost Leadership Fellow from 2019 to 2021, gaining insights into key campus strategic initiatives and academic processes, strategic planning, budget issues, and challenges in higher education.

Sen. Maria Martinez is a first-generation Latina from Miami. She has immersed herself in the ethnic mosaic of Columbia culture, proudly advocating to the Columbia Administration on behalf of the unique student population and the vibrant Harlem community. Whether organizing a drive to support Harlem families or researching the COVID-19 protocols of peer institutions, Maria knows what students value in their undergraduate experience. When the powerful voices of students unite, they can enact meaningful societal change, starting with Columbia – what motivated Maria to run for the University Senate. Maria hopes to bring light to these issues and to give back to the community.

Sen. Maria Luisa Gozzi is a senior lecturer and has taught at Columbia University since 1993. She has served in the University Senate previously and was recently elected to the Lecturer Advisory Committee for the second time.

Dr. Gozzi has taught Italian language courses at all levels, and thematic courses on Italian cinema, opera, linguistic and cultural diversity, literature and war, Dante, stylistics, and the senses. She has published articles on Italian cinema, Italian literature and language pedagogy, and has created several websites for Italian language and culture acquisition. Dr. Gozzi came to the United States after graduating from the University of Florence, Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Italian from Rutgers University and an M.A. in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University. 

Margaret Corn is a Ph.D. student in Columbia's Classical Studies Graduate Program, interested in ancient music and mathematics. Margaret's research focuses on the Pythagorean tradition, examining the influences thereupon and the interrelation of technical disciplines therein, as well as the reception of the Pythagoreans' unique mathematical metaphysics in Platonic philosophy. In her MA thesis, Margaret reconstructed the Pythagorean musical, mathematical, and astronomical features of the Timaeus, with an eye toward understanding the philosophical difficulties arising from the geometrical characterization of Platonic body. In addition, Margaret recreated 31 ancient scales in her "Ancient Greek Scale Project," for which she visually mapped out tuning patterns, calculated the corresponding numerical values, and generated audio files for each scale. She presented portions of the former project at the Gesellschaft für antike Philosophie's Philosophische Literatur–Literarische Philosophie  Workshop in 2021.

Margaret is also interested in art history, particularly where it intersects with her philosophical research. She has examined astronomical ceiling decorations in New Kingdom pharaonic tombs, the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic significance of geometrical motifs in medieval cathedrals, and the political and art historical context informing the Naples Tyrannicide Sculptural Group (her paper on the last of these topics won Columbia's 2021 Classical Studies Essay Prize). She has also excavated at Hadrian's Villa in Italy with Columbia's Advanced Program of Ancient History and Art and studied medieval-era textile conservation in Greece with the Balkan Heritage Field School, scientific analytical techniques for Cambodian technical ceramics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and photogrammetry at New York University.

As a graduate student at Columbia, Margaret has been a teaching assistant for courses on Plato and the history of philosophy (covering ancient Greek philosophical schools/traditions/figures including the Eleatics, Atomists, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, and Skeptics). She also taught an original comparative ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy class in Beijing as a 2019 Symposium Fellow.

Margaret studied Classics and Art History as an undergraduate at Columbia University, where she graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa after her junior year. Her BA thesis on Iliadic self-consciousness received the Ernest Stadler Prize for Excellence in the Study of Classical Antiquity.

In her free time, Margaret writes music (including an orchestral composition supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative), makes films and animations with the production company she founded in 2012, and takes aerial photographs. She is also an avid language learner and most recently studied Hindi as part of the U.S. Department of State's Critical Language Scholarship Program. Email Margaret Corn.

Sen. Marco Tedesco is a Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and Adjunct Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). He is also affiliated with the Data Science Institute and is Affiliated professor at Sant’Anna School of Economics in Pisa, Italy. Dr. Tedesco has been the Resident Scientist at the Columbia Business School, since 2021. On the University Senate, He is a fellow of the Explorers Club and a member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, Equity Working Group. Dr. Tedesco serves on the Research Officers Committee and on the External Relations and Research Policy Committee. 

Dr. Tedesco received his Laurea degree and Ph.D. from the University of Naples and the Italian National Research Council. He then spent five years as a postdoctoral and research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He moved to CCNY in 2008 as an Assistant Professor, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. During his time at CCNY, he founded and directed the Cryosphere Processes Laboratory and was a rotating program manager at the National Science Foundation from 2013 to 2015. In 2016, he joined Columbia University. 

Dr. Tedesco’s research focuses on the dynamics of seasonal snowpack, ice sheet surface properties, high latitude fieldwork, dendrochronology, global climate change, its implications on the economy and real estate and climate justice. Dr. Tedesco led more than ten expeditions to Greenland and to Antarctica, beside fieldwork in  many other places, including Iceland, the United States, Canada, the Italian Alps. He is the editor of “Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere,” published by Wiley in 2015, and “The Hidden Lid of Ice.,” First published in 2018, it has been translated into seven languages and was selected by TheWashington Post and by National Geographic Traveler as one of the best 10 books of the year. 

Maneesha Aggarwal has worked at CUIT since 2001 and was appointed to AVP of Academic and Research Solutions in June 2016. She added Emerging Technologies to her portfolio in 2018.

Maneesha oversees teaching and learning and research services for the University. She has successfully led large projects in partnership with schools/departments across the University, including upgrading CourseWorks (twice, to Sakai in 2011 and Canvas in 2016), managing the Sundial replacement project, and launching the University-wide online evaluation system. Maneesha has also spearheaded the launch of new services including Electronic Notebooks, Confluence, Zoom, Panopto, JuypterHub and more. Additionally, Maneesha provides strategic leadership in the areas of research computing including High Performance Computing, RASCAL and InfoEd teams.

Maneesha provides direction for CUIT's Emerging Technology Consortium (ETC), which she kicked-off in the fall of 2017. This group positions CUIT as an exchange place for cutting-edge work and knowledge sharing among researchers, faculty, students and industry partners. ETC is focused on fostering and developing applications of new technologies, such as voice-aided technologies, augmented reality, virtual reality, and 3D scanners and printers. 

Executive Assistant: Anna Braude ([email protected])

Sen. Madiyar Nurakhmetov joined the University Senate to ensure that the voices of SIPA students are heard. He is a Longevity and Urbanism enthusiast. Madiyar has experience in public policy, management consulting, banking, mining, and HR. Before coming to SIPA, he was a managing director in one of Kazakhstan's largest banks, a manager in a Ministry of Economy think-tank, project manager for Kazakhstan's largest mining company, and head of strategy in the National Civil Service Agency. He also cofounded a consulting case interview simulator and an app teaching safe behavior during encounters with police. A fan of rock, trivia, and podcasts, Madiyar also loves playing guitar, dombyra, and the harmonica.

Sen. Lisa Rosen-Metsch '90GS is the 9th Dean of the Columbia School of General Studies and the first alumna to serve as Dean. Previously, she was the Chair and Stephen Smith Professor, Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health. Dean Rosen-Metsch is a medical sociologist and an internationally recognized scholar whose work has focused on the social determinants of health with special focus on access to care for persons living with HIV and substance use disorders. For the past two decades, her research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has resulted in over 250 publications in high impact journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Addiction, and the American Journal of Public Health.

Mentoring and teaching has always been a high priority for Dean Rosen-Metsch and she has won numerous teaching awards and co-directs a NIH-funded training program with the Columbia School of Social Work. This spring, she taught a new seminar course in the Department of Sociology for undergraduates entitled “AIDS and U.S. Society” that explored how the HIV/AIDS epidemic transformed American society. In her time as Dean, Columbia GS has significantly increased fundraising for student financial aid scholarships, created and launched new international dual-degree programs, and created new initiatives focused on social justice and women student veterans.

Sen. Lisa Dale teaches at Columbia University’s Climate School, where she serves as co-Director for the Masters’ program in Climate & Society. Trained as a political scientist, her research explores the way policies at all levels of government can enhance the adaptive capacity of rural communities. She studies this dynamic in the American West through research on wildfire policy, and in Sub-Saharan Africa through research on resettlement policy in Rwanda. Lisa graduated with a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from Colorado State University (2003). Her background includes several years as a policy analyst with the State of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources. She currently lives and works in New York City, with a secondary academic appointment at the University of Rwanda.

Sen. Letty Moss-Salentijn is Edward V. Zegarelli Professor of Dentistry (in Anatomy and Cell Biology) and Vice Dean for Curriculum Innovation and Interprofessional Education in the College of Dental Medicine. On the University Senate, Dr. Moss-Salentijn serves on the Executive Committee and chairs the Tenured Faculty Caucus. She also co-chairs the Education Committee and the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom, and Tenure Committee. Dr. Moss-Salentijn’s research has focused primarily on aspects of growth and development of skeletal and dental tissues. Much of her work was done in collaboration with her late husband Professor Melvin L. Moss and colleagues in the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. More recently, especially during the pandemic, she has worked with members of CTL, CUIT, and the Computer Science Department to assist her faculty colleagues in the use of new media applications to enrich online teaching. 

Loftin Flowers is the vice president for government relations and leads the University’s engagement and advocacy efforts with federal, state, and city government. Loftin holds a BA in History from Haverford College and an MPA from Columbia University. Prior to his role at Columbia, Loftin worked in Washington, DC at the national offices of the Children's Defense Fund, the Democratic National Committee, and John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president.

Laurie Magid is a 1985 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and served as a Notes and Comments Editor for the Columbia Law Review. After graduating, she served as a law clerk on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit before entering public service as an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia. For the last two decades she has been a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia. During her time as a federal prosecutor she was detailed to the Department of Justice’s Pardon Office for the last year of the Obama Administration to work on the Clemency Initiative. During the Covid pandemic, she worked almost entirely on compassionate release motions by people who are incarcerated and at risk from Covid. On the Univiersity Senate, Laurie has co-chaired the Alumni Relations Committee and served on the Campus Planning and Physical  Development and External Relations and Research Policy committees.

Laurie has taught criminal procedure and legal writing - as an Associate Professor at Widener Law School, as a Legal Writing professor at Villanova Law School, and as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School and Temple Law School. Laurie was a member of the Columbia Law School Association from 2010 to 2018, where she served as President for the last four years and brought a focus on mentoring women and first-year professional students. She has served on the Columbia Alumni Association since 2017, and on the Alumnae Leadership Group since 2015, where she helped organize the first “She Opened the Door” conference. She was the Chair of Leaders Weekend in 2019.

Laurie lives in Philadelphia with her husband, who owns a catering company, and has three grown children. She also serves on the Board of her synagogue, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, New York’s LGBT synagogue, where she has helped lead their efforts on social justice issues with projects such as setting up a mentoring program for formerly incarcerated students at CUNY Law School.

Sen. Lalitha Vasudevan is Professor of Technology and Education, Vice Dean for Digital Innovation, and Managing Director of the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College. Lalitha is also the Founding Director of the Media and Social Change Lab.

Kyle Jacobs graduated from the School of Professional Studies in 2023 with a master's degree in sustainability management. While at Columbia, Kyle was a Columbia HBCU Fellow. He completed his undergraduate studies at Virginia State University.

Kavika Krishnan is a sophomore majoring in computer science in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Kavika is a member of the Engineering Student Council, where she is Vice President of the Class of 2025 and serves on the Student Life and Policy committees. On the University Senate, Kavika serves on the Commission on the Status of Women.

Sen. Katherine Brooks is a Collection Analysis Librarian in the Columbia University Libraries. In this position, she analyzes electronic resource usage data to support strategic collection development and management in the Libraries while also serving as a science librarian. On the University Senate, Katherine serves on the Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee and on the Libraries and Digital Resources Committee. Before joining the Libraries, Katherine was a Frontiers of Science postdoctoral fellow in the Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Science Department and instructor in the College.

Sen. Julia Hirschberg is Percy K and Vida LW Hudson Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University (department chair 2012-2018). She previously worked at Bell Laboratories and AT&T Labs on TTS and created the HCI Research Department. She has served on executive boards for: ACL, ISCA (president 2005-7), CRA-W/WP, NAACL, CRA, AAAI Council, and IEEE SLTC and numerous awards committees and was editor of Computational Linguistics and Speech Communication. She is a fellow of AAAI, ISCA, ACL, ACM, and IEEE, and a member of the NAE, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She received the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award, ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement and ISCA Special Service Medal. She has worked many years for diversity at AT&T and Columbia. She studies speech and NLP, currently: false information and intent on social media, radicalization in online videos, code-switching, switchboard alignment, emotional, and empathetic speech.

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.

Joseph A. Howley holds a Ph.D. in Classics (2011) and an M Litt in Ancient History (2007) from the University of St Andrews, in Scotland, and a BA (2006) in Ancient Studies from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  He teaches Latin, the history of the book, and Literature Humanities in Columbia’s Core Curriculum.  He is Secretary of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, VA.

Prof. Howley has published the Noctes Atticaeof Aulus Gellius and its intersections with Roman intellectual and reading cultures, including Roman study abroad and juristic writing.  His first book, Aulus Gellius, and Roman Reading Culture: Text, Presence and Imperial Knowledge in the Noctes Atticae, was published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press.

Prof. Howley’s current projects focus on the history of the book, including the early modern printing of Classical literature and the fate of Classical paratext in medieval and early modern transmission and remediation; early phonographic recordings of Greek and Latin literature; imperial-era retellings of classical myths about books and writing; and the poetics of textual materiality in Roman imperial literature.

His current book project, Slavery and the Roman Book is a history of the Roman book seen through the lens of the enslaved labor on which it depended: for the composition of literature, the reading of books, and the production of new copies.  He is also the co-organizer of the workshop series MATERIA: New Approaches to Material Text in the Roman World (http://www.materiaconference.net/) and founding co-chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Material Texts (http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/material-texts/).

Sen. Josef Sorett is Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education, Professor of Religion and African American and African Diaspora Studies, and Director of the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice. As an interdisciplinary scholar of religion and race in the Americas, Dr. Sorett employs primarily historical and literary approaches to the study of religion in black communities and cultures in the United States. His first book, Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 2016) illumines how religion has figured in debates about black art and culture across the 20th century. A second book, The Holy Holy Black: The Ironies of an American Secular, is forthcoming with Oxford UP. Additionally, Josef is editing an anthology, The Sexual Politics of Black Churches, which will be published by Columbia University Press.

Dr. Sorett's scholarly work has been supported with grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the E. Rhodes and Leone B. Carpenter Foundation, the Arcus Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Louisville Institute, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and Yale University’s Institute for Sacred Music. His research has been published in academic journals and anthologies; and his writing and commentary have also appeared in a range of popular media outlets, including ABC News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, as well as on the BBC and NPR.

Sen. Jonathon Katz grew up in Brooklyn and is a proud New Yorker. Jonathon attended CUNY Brooklyn College for undergrad, where he received a degree in psychology. He recently entered his third year in the College of Dental Medicine, where he enjoys the clinical side of the curriculum, working on patient care. On the University Senate, he serves on the Student Affairs and Education committees. When not on campus, Jonathon can be found playing ice hockey or snowboarding. He is thrilled to serve on the University Senate and to collaborate with other members of the broader Columbia University community to enhance our incredible institution. 

Jonathan Susman, M.D., is Clinical Director of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and Program Director of the IR Residencies at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Susman grew up in St. Louis and earned his A.B. at Columbia College. After his training and a brief stint on staff at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he returned to Columbia where he has been for the past two decades. Dr. Susman has a keen interest in interventional oncology and interventions in the post liver transplant patient. He has presented internationally on complex portal and biliary interventions, as well as on oncologic embolization and ablation. 

Sen. John Donaldson is the Mario J. Gabelli Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School, where he teaches courses in basic finance and options. Dr. Donaldson focuses on business cycles and asset pricing, with a particular emphasis on the real side of the economy’s impact on equilibrium pricing of financial assets. Dr. Donaldson received his M.S in economics and M.S. in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, and his Ph.D. in economics also from Carnegie Mellon University. On the University Senate, he co-chairs the Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee.

Sen. Jeremy Dodd has been a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics since 2007. He has served as DUS for Physics since 2009 and oversees all aspects of teaching in the department. He was the recipient of the Presidential Teaching Award in 2021 and the Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award in 2022. Recent committee service includes: CC-SEAS Expansion Study Student Life and Core Working Group, A&S PPC Subcommittee on Pandemic Remediation, A&S Lecturer Advisory Committee, A&S Lecturer Planning Committee, CC Board of Visitors, CC Science Research Fellows Admissions Committee, CC-GS Committee on Instruction, Bridge to the PhD Program in the Natural Sciences Admissions Committee). He also directs the Columbia Science Honors Program, a long-running enrichment program for talented local high school students.

Sen. Jennifer J. Manly, PhD is Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research in Aging and Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University. Her research focuses on mechanisms of inequalities in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. Her research team has partnered with the Black and Latinx communities in New York City and around the United States to design and carry out investigations of structural and social forces across the lifecourse, such as educational opportunities, discrimination, and socioeconomic inequality, and how these factors relate to cognition and brain health later in life. She is the MPI of the Columbia Interdisciplinary Research Center on Alzheimer’s Disparities which focuses on mentoring early career scientists from minoritized backgrounds. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer’s Association, and she has authored over 220 peer-reviewed publications and 10 chapters. She was the 2014 recipient of the Tony Wong Diversity Award for Outstanding Mentorship, was the recipient of the Paul Satz-International Neuropsychological Society Career Mentoring Award in 2020, and was named the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Senior Mentor of the Year in 2022. Dr. Manly was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021. She served on the HHS Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care and Services from 2011 – 2015 and is a current member of the National Advisory Council on Aging.

Sen. Jeffrey N. Gordon, the co-director of Columbia Law School’s Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership, teaches and writes extensively on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, comparative corporate governance, and the regulation of financial institutions.  He is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance (2018) and co-author of Principles of Financial Regulation (2016), which addresses the challenges facing regulators of financial institutions and markets in an interconnected and evolving global financial system.  His current work focuses on the law and political economy of current corporate governance arrangements.  In that regard he has been a participant in the British Academy project on the Future of the Corporation, publishing "Is Corporate Governance a First Order Cause of the Current Malaise?"  

Gordon also serves as co-director of the interdisciplinary Columbia Center for Law and Economic Studies and of the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, a joint program of the Columbia Law and Business Schools. He is also a longtime fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), the international, scientific, nonprofit association where academics, legislators, and practitioners debate major corporate governance issues.

Gordon joined the Columbia Law faculty in 1988, after six years as a professor at the NYU School of Law. Before becoming an academic, Gordon was a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, an associate at a corporate firm in New York, and an attorney for the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. In addition to teaching at Columbia, Gordon is a visiting professor on the faculty of law at the University of Oxford.

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 the Budget Review Committee, External Relations and Research Policy Committee, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Commission on Diversity. 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 has been Executive Director of the Summer Program for Under-Represented Students at CUIMC for the past 19 years. 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. Jaxon Williams-Bellamy is a J.D. candidate in the Law School. Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, Jaxon graduated with a B.A. in economics, political science, and French from Columbia College in 2021. After a year spent teaching high school English in northern France and volunteering with the Columbia Global Center in Paris, Jaxon matriculated as a J.D. candidate at Columbia Law School. On the University Senate, Jaxon serves on the Student Affairs, Campus Planning and Physical Development, and Rules of University Conduct committees.

As an undergraduate, Jaxon served as a peer adviser at the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement and, since graduating has maintained close ties with the Columbia College community as an alumni mentor with the Odyssey Mentoring Program. As a law student, Jaxon has continued to promote the many opportunities for collaboration and exchange available at the University and, as the Law School’s Student Senator, hopes to foster greater modes of connection between the Law School and the greater University community.

Janie Weiss is IT Manager of the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, a role she has held for over 30 years. She assists faculty, staff, and students with their IT needs, helping to advance the research enterprise. On the University Senate, Janie serves on the Commission on the Status of Women, the Rules Committee, and on the Structure and Operations Committee.

Sen. James H. Applegate is Professor of Astronomy. On the University Senate, Dr. Applegate serves on the Executive Committee, co-chairs the Education Committee, and serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.  Dr. Applegate received his B.S. in astrophysics from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in physics from SUNY at Stony Brook. He was a Bantrell Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, and a previous chair of the Astronomy Department at Columbia.

Sen. Jalaj Mehta is the School of Engineering and Applied Science Undergraduate Student Senator. Jalaj is a junior majoring in materials science and engineering and minoring in computer science. He has an interest in the intertwining of science and politics and hopes to have an impact on the school through the University Senate. He is also a part of the Men's Ultimate Frisbee club team and does research with the Gang Group. He hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in materials science after graduating.

Itsik Pe’er is a professor in the Department of Computer Science. His laboratory develops and applies computational methods for the analysis of high-throughput data in germline human genetics. Specifically, he has a strong interest in isolated populations such as Pacific Islanders and Ashkenazi Jews. The Pe’er Lab has developed methodology to identify hidden relatives — primarily in such isolated populations — that involves inferring their past demography, detecting associations between phenotypes and genetic segments co-inherited from the joint ancestors of hidden relatives, and establishing the exceptional utility of whole-genome sequencing in population genetics. With the arrival of high-throughput sequencing methods, Pe’er has focused on characterizing genetic variation that is unique to isolated populations, including the effects of such variation on phenotype.

Sen. Ian Beilin is Humanities Research Services Librarian and the Librarian for German Studies, Philosophy, and Humanities Reference at Butler Library. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia, and an M.S.I.S. from the University at Albany. On the University Senate, Sen. Beilin serves on the Libraries and Digital Resource committee and on the Honors and Prizes committee.

Sen. Howard J. Worman, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Cell Biology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, has been at Columbia for 28 years, researching cell biology and liver diseases, teaching medical and graduate students, and caring for patients at the medical center. On the University Senate, Dr. Worman co-chairs the Committee on External Relations and Research Policy and serves on the Budget Committee and the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

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.

Sen. Henry Ginsberg is the Irving Professor of Medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he has conducted basic and translational research on lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease for 37 years. Dr. Ginsberg was Director of the Irving Center for Clinical Research from 1994 to 2006 and the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research from 2006 to 2017. From 1992 to 2008 and from 2014 until the present, he has been PI on an NHLBI T32 postdoctoral training program in Arteriosclerosis Research. Dr. Ginsberg has published over 400 peer-reviewed and invited papers in journals, and has received funding from the NIH for more than 40 years. He also sees patients with severe lipid disorders and teach. On the University Senate, he serves on the Commission on the Status of Women, and hopes that his many years on the faculty allow him to offer insights and perspectives relevant to the issues facing the University.

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. Greg Freyer is Professor and Faculty Director of Graduate Education of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, where he serves as chair of the Doctoral Committee. Dr. Freyer has been a member of the University Senate since 2011. He serves on the Executive Committee and co-chairs the Committee on Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure. Dr. Freyer also co-chairs the University Senate’s Tenure-Track and Off-Track Faculty Caucus. 

Dr. Freyer is deeply engaged in developing educational programs, teaches multiple courses and was recipient of both the Mailman School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award and the Columbia University Presidential Teaching Award in 2014. Dr. Freyer’s research has focused on cellular responses to environmental insults and, more recently, on predicting infectious disease outbreaks.

Gaspare LoDuca is Vice President and CIO at Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT). He oversees all aspects of Columbia University's major information technology systems, which include applications, infrastructure, networking, telephony, cybersecurity, and IT policy. He heads the University's central technology management group (CUIT) and leads the IT Leadership Council, providing IT governance across all schools and major departments.

Sen. Frank R. Lichtenberg is Cain Brothers & Company Professor of Healthcare Management in the Faculty of Business Economics at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a member of the CESifo Research Network. He received a B.A. with Honors in History from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. On the University Senate, he serves on the Education Committee.

Mr. Lichtenberg previously taught at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Ecole Polytechnique. He has served as an expert for the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and state Attorneys General, and has testified before Congress. He has worked for several U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Census Bureau, and been a visiting scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, the University of Munich, and elsewhere.

He has been awarded research fellowships, grants, and contracts by the National Science Foundation, the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Merck and Co., the Fulbright Commission, the Brookings Institution, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The German Marshall Fund, the American Enterprise Institute, and other organizations. He has served as a consultant to private organizations and government agencies including the Securities Industry Association, Pfizer, Inc., the Community Preservation Corporation, the RAND Corporation, the New York City Water Board, Touche Ross and Co., The Walt Disney Company, McGraw-Hill, and the National Pharmaceutical Council. He is an affiliate of the economics consulting firm Analysis Group. 

Fouad Habib is a Master of Public Health graduate from the Mailman School of Public Health, with a specialized focus in biostatistics and environmental health policy. During his time at Columbia, Fouad served as the Mailman School of Public Health Senator on the University Senate's Student Affairs and Education committees, advocating for student interests and contributing to the academic community's governance.

Before pursuing his master's degree, Fouad had a successful career as a biomedical engineer in Kuwait, where his exceptional contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic were acknowledged with the prestigious First Line Workers Award from the Office of the Prime Minister.

Currently, Fouad is making significant strides in his professional journey as an Associate at Strategy& in Riyadh, where he continues to apply his expertise to address critical challenges in the Middle East.

Sen. Erick Zent is an undergraduate student at Columbia College, studying political science. He was born and raised in Venezuela until he was 13, when the burgeoning economic and political issues facing his country forced him to leave. As such, he is interested in addressing the challenges facing and advocating for displaced people.

Ellen Marakowitz is Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, where her research interests include an examination of the ways in which gender intersects with national identity and national narratives. On the Senate, Professor Marakowitz is a member of the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom, and Tenure Committee, and she has served previously on the Education Committee.

Professor Marakowitz's research includes work in Finland examining several women's associations, which represented a range of perspectives on female identity and notions of citizenship. In this research Marakowitz explores the contradictions contained in the political power women in Finland hold and the limitations of that power. More recently she has been engaged with topics in the area of medical anthropology, and has been looking at public health issues in the U.S., primarily in the area of tuberculosis.

Marakowitz has been conducting fieldwork into the nature of collaborations between public and private agencies in terms of control, treatment and definition of disease. She will be expanding this research to include an exploration of how the triangle of tuberculosis, substance, and AIDS impacts on access to primary medical services and institutions.

Sen. Elizabeth Corwin, Ph.D., FAAN, is the Anna C. Maxwell Professor of Nursing Research and Vice Dean of Strategic and Innovative Research in the School of Nursing. On the University Senate, Dr. Corwin serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

Dr. Corwin leads interdisciplinary research aimed at uncovering the biological mechanisms responsible for symptom development and adverse health outcomes in pregnant and postpartum women. She is a doctorally prepared physiologist, as well as a certified family nurse practitioner. Throughout her research career, she has combined her expertise as a basic scientist with her experience caring for women and families across the lifespan. Her research utilizes cutting-edge omic technologies and approaches, including microbiomics and metabolomics, to provide a better understanding of the bidirectional contributions of exaggerated inflammation and chronic stress to adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes, especially among low-income and minority populations. Her work currently focuses on characterizing the vaginal microbiome in light of the health disparity in preterm birth experienced by African American women. Dissemination of her research identifying a biological fingerprint of disadvantage in minority and low-income pregnant women has added urgency to the national dialogue on the need to eliminate health disparity.

Sen. Elisa E. Konofagou designs and develops ultrasound-based technologies for automated estimation of tissue mechanics as well as drug delivery and therapeutics. Her group has worked on the design of algorithms that can estimate minute deformation as a result of physiological function, such as in the heart and vessels, and displacements induced by the ultrasound wave itself, such as in tumors and nerves, while she maintains several collaborations with physicians in order to translate these technologies to the clinical setting. She has also developed novel techniques in order to facilitate noninvasive brain drug delivery as well as modulation of both the central and peripheral nervous systems. 

Dr. Konofagou received a B.S. in chemical physics from Université de Paris 6 in 1992, an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Imperial College (London, U.K.) in 1993 and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Houston in 1999. She is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and in 2007 she received the NSF CAREER Award. In 2021, Dr. Konofagou was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. On the University Senate, Dr. Konofagou serves on the Budget Committee.

Eki Uzamere is a third year Columbia College student, pursuing a double major in computer science and data science. As Chief of Staff, Eki supports the work of the Student Affairs Committee of the University Senate in its endeavor to ensure that every student at Columbia feels seen, heard, and valued.

Beyond the realms of academia, Eki is deeply involved in the journalistic community of the institution, serving as Associate Editorial Page Editor for the Opinion Section of the Columbia Daily Spectator. Additionally, Eki plays a pivotal role in promoting inclusivity and celebrating diversity on campus as a leader for Columbia’s Black Residential Brownstone, a special interest community for Black students on campus.

Sen. Eduardo Moncada is a political scientist who studies crime and violence in Latin America, analyzing its impact on politics, its consequences, and how communities function around it. Professor Moncada takes an interdisciplinary approach, bridging political science with urban studies and criminology, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America.

His 2022 book Resisting Extortion: Victims, Criminals and States in Latin America, which has received multiple awards, examines how communities navigate a reality of widespread extortion, and how individuals and communities resist criminal victimization in very different ways. Professor Moncada was selected for the 2021 Clarence Stone Scholar Award by the American Political Science Association for young scholars making significant contributions to the study of urban politics.

Dennis A. Mitchell, DDS, MPH, serves as Executive Vice President for University Life, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement at Columbia University, and Professor of Dental Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. 

In his role as Executive Vice President for University Life, Dr. Mitchell continues his long-standing mission of diversifying the academy at every level. His earliest work at the College of Dental Medicine comprised a united effort including student affairs, admissions, and alumni affairs. 

From President Bollinger’s August 17, 2021 announcement:

“An expert clinician, researcher, and administrator, Dennis has devoted his 30-year career at Columbia to strengthening our community, perhaps most notably through his commitment to fostering an inclusive campus climate for new and rising faculty members. He is a natural leader for University Life’s critical work of building community among the next generation of thought leaders, researchers, and innovators—our students.

As EVP for University Life, Dennis will draw upon his extensive experience in diversity, equity, and inclusion to advance the mission of University Life: to best serve the needs of Columbia’s students and to engage with them on issues of campus-wide interest and importance, including community citizenship, mental health and wellbeing, inclusion and belonging, sexual respect, and antiracism.”

He has been on the Columbia faculty since 1991 and has shown a deep commitment to the oral health needs of underserved populations in the communities surrounding Columbia. From 2004 to 2021, Mitchell served as the first diversity-focused dean at a U.S. dental school in his role as Senior Associate Dean for Diversity for the College of Dental Medicine. In this role, he led the effort to increase the proportion of historically- underrepresented students in each incoming class from 3% to 20%.

As Senior Vice Provost, he implements the programmatic elements of the University’s ongoing financial commitment (currently totaling $185 million) to enhance the diversity of the faculty and works with the leaders of each of Columbia’s schools to evaluate and strengthen their diversity initiatives. 

As an academic, he has focused on building programs to diversify the health professions. He previously served as Co-Principal Investigator for Columbia’s Summer Health Professions Education Program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and for the Summer Public Health Scholars Program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Together, these two pipeline programs bring over 125 young scholars from underrepresented groups to the Columbia campus each summer.

Mitchell previously served as the Director of the Harlem component of the Community DentCare Network for Columbia, and as Director of Research and Community Dentistry at Harlem Hospital. He oversaw the development, implementation, and evaluation of Columbia’s offsite dental service programs in Harlem, which is now responsible for over 20,000 patient visits annually. 

Dr. Mitchell serves on the board of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, and on the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee of the American Dental Education Association. He is the Council of Representatives Chair (ex-officio) and member of the Health Professions chapter for the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. He also is a founding member and Columbia University representative for the Faculty Advancement Network.

David Pozen teaches and writes about constitutional law, information law, and nonprofit law, among other topics. 

In 2019, the American Law Institute named Pozen the recipient of its Early Career Scholars Medal, which is awarded every other year to “one or two outstanding early-career law professors whose work is relevant to public policy and has the potential to influence improvements in the law.” Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar of the California Supreme Court, the selection committee chair, described Pozen’s writings on government secrecy and constitutional theory as “remarkable” and “widely influential,” “as timely as they are learned and as creative and thought-provoking as they are nuanced and precise.”

Pozen’s body of work includes dozens of articles, essays, and book chapters. He has also edited two volumes for Columbia University Press, on transparency (2018) and free speech (2020), and been a semi-regular contributor to the Balkinization and Lawfare blogs. He has been the keynote speaker at numerous academic conferences, in the United States and abroad, and his scholarship has been discussed in outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Harper’s, Politico, American Scholar, and NPR.

In 2017, Pozen became the inaugural visiting scholar at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. In 2013, the student-run Columbia Society of International Law recognized Pozen with its Faculty Honors Award.

From 2010 to 2012, Pozen served as special adviser to Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, Pozen was a law clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Merrick B. Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and was a special assistant to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

David Hajdu is one of the most respected arts critics in America. Currently the staff music critic for The Nation, he served as music critic for The New Republic for 12 years. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Harper's and other publications.

Hajdu is the author of seven books of cultural history, criticism, and fiction: "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn," "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña," "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America," "Heroes and Villains: Essays on Movies, Music, Comics and Culture," "Love for Sale: Pop Music in America," "Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction," and "A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay and Julian Eltinge," a work of graphic nonfiction with art by John Carey. He is a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and three-time winner of the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing. His book "Lush Life" was named one of "Hundred Best Nonfiction Books of All Time" by The New York Times.

In addition to writing about music, Hajdu is a successful songwriter and librettist for concert music. His most recent project is the song cycle "The Parsonage," a work of historical nonfiction in musical form, created in collaboration with the composers Regina Carter, Ted Hearne, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and others.

Hajdu's book in progress is a history of machine-made art, AI, and computational creativity, to be published by W.W. Norton.

In 2022, Hajdu was appointed by President Biden to the National Council on the Humanities.

Sen. Daniel Wolf Savin is Senior Research Scientist in the Columbia Astrophysics Lab. 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, Dr. Savin represents Professional Research Officers and chairs the Research Officers Committee, co-chairs the Structure and Operations Committee, and serves on the Budget Committee and the Joint Benefits Subcommittee.

Sen. Daniel Billings is a hematology/oncology nurse practitioner with New York Cancer and Blood Specialists. On the University Senate, Dr. Billings represents alumni. He co-chairs the Alumni Relations Committee and serves on the Budget Committee.

Dr. Billings attended Columbia University School of Nursing, beginning with the Entry-to-Practice program, and earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing. He specialized in adult-gerontology primary care, with a sub-specialty in oncology. Dr. Billing’s training culminated in the Doctorate of Nursing Practice at the School of Nursing, focusing on comprehensive care for patients with sickle cell disease. He served as a Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar from 2016 to 2018, and took full advantage of leadership opportunities, mentoring students in the Peer Leadership Program and serving as co-president of the Doctoral Students Organization.

Dr. Billings is an inaugural recipient of the Campbell Award, established by the University Trustees and Columbia Alumni Association in 2016 and presented to a graduating student from each school who shows exceptional leadership and Columbia spirit. He serves on the Columbia Nursing Alumni Board and Columbia University Alumni Association Board of Directors, and was a founding member of the Oncology Nursing of Columbia student organization.

Dr. Billings previously worked for the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University's Irving Medical Campus as a nurse practitioner in hematology, as well as at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as infectious disease advanced practice provider.

Sen. Daichi Shimbo received a BS from the Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering (1991) and a MD from the Albany Medical College (1995). After completing an Internal Medicine residency (1998), Dr. Shimbo went on to complete a Chief Medical residency in Internal Medicine (1999) and a fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine (2003) at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York before joining the faculty at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in September 2003. As faculty, Dr. Shimbo is Professor of Medicine and clinician-scientist, committed to creating and disseminating an evidence-base of clinical and translational research in how hypertension and its different phenotypes are related to cardiovascular disease onset. In particular, Dr. Shimbo’s work has led to improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension subtypes associated with the highest cardiovascular disease and mortality risk. 

In addition to his research program, Dr. Shimbo is currently the Director of the TRANSFORM (Training and Nurturing Scholars for Research that Is Multidisciplinary) Resource and Associate Director of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA). Dr. Shimbo is also the Associate Dean of Research Career Development. His role is to design and disseminate research training and education workshops and seminars for early career and mid-career scholars so that they can have productive and successful research careers. Dr. Shimbo is available to meet one-on-one with scholars to discuss and provide tailored advice on career development. Finally, Dr. Shimbo is very much interested in the research career development of underrepresented persons.

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).

Christopher Brown is a historian of Britain and the British empire, principally in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with special emphasis on the comparative history of slavery and abolition, and with secondary interests in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Age of Revolutions.  His current research centers on the history of European experience on the African coast at the height of the Atlantic slave trade, and continues early commitments to the rise and fall of slavery in the British Empire.  Published work has received prizes in four distinct fields of study – American History, British History, Atlantic History, and the history of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance.  Completed projects include Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (University of North Carolina Press) and, with Philip D. Morgan, Arming Slaves: Classical Times to the Modern Age (Yale University Press).  He has written as well for The Nation, The New York Times, and the London Review of Books, among other outlets.  

Brown came to Columbia University in 2007, after eight years on the faculties of Rutgers University and The Johns Hopkins University.  At Columbia, he has served as the Director of the Society of the Fellows in the Humanities (2011-2017), Chair of the University-Wide Tenure Review Advisory Committee (2014-2015), and as the inaugural Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (2015-2018).  At the graduate level, he trains doctoral students in a wide range of fields, including the British Empire to 1815, Early Modern Britain, Colonial America, Atlantic History, and the Comparative History of Slavery in the Americas.  In 2016 he received the Faculty Mentoring Award from the University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for excellence in supervising doctoral students during their years of graduate study.    

Christopher Damoci is Manager of the Columbia University Oncology Precision Therapeutics Imaging Core (OPTIC) at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.  Chris received his Bachelor’s from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2001 and worked at the Garden State Cancer Center and the Center for Molecular Medicine and Immunology. Chris moved to ImClone Systems and then Eli Lilly focusing of preclinical experimental therapeutics in their monoclonal antibody platforms and is very proud to have been part of the teams that brought a number of breakthrough drugs to market, specifically Erbitux (Cetuximab) and Cyramza (Ramucirumab).  Chris joined Columbia in 2004 and loves his position here at Columbia University where he gets to teach the next generations of research scientists throughout the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center the benefits of noninvasive imaging like MRI, CT, Ultrasound and Optical for their ongoing research.

Sen. Cheng Gong is a biomedical engineering Ph.D. candidate in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Cheng enjoys using the art of optics to solve healthcare and life sciences problems, and is attracted by lab-to-market biomedical innovation. As a University Senator, Cheng seeks to foster connections across schools and with the wider Columbia community. On the University Senate, Cheng co-chairs the Student Affairs and External Relations and Research Policy committees, and serves on the Executive Committee. He also chairs the Ph.D. Council of Columbia University and is a member of the Columbia Alumni Association Board. 

Sen. Charles Zukowski is Professor of Engineering and former Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. On the University Senate, he serves on the Education Committee.

Professor Zukowski received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was awarded the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award for his work on bounding integrated circuit behavior.

Professor Zukowski holds a patent for a time-division multiplexed data transmission system. He is Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has served on the editorial boards of several journals published by IEEE. In addition to his involvement in IEEE, Professor Zukowski is a current or former member of engineering honor societies including Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi. 

Catherine Ross is Executive Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, providing the academic vision and strategic leadership for the CTL, advancing the culture of teaching on Columbia’s campuses. She works closely with the Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation, Columbia’s schools and colleges, and faculty leaders to determine priorities for the CTL and develop new initiatives and programs.

Catherine has worked in higher education for more than 25 years, most recently leading teaching centers where she created and managed programs to support faculty, graduate students, and postdocs. Prior to coming to Columbia, Catherine served as the Executive Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Wake Forest University, and was the Associate Director of the Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Connecticut. She has also taught Russian and English as a Second Language and Applied Linguistics, including at a number of foreign universities where she has also supported faculty development.

Catherine is a frequent contributor to teaching and learning publications and conferences. Some of her recent papers include “Shifting Faculty Thinking: Connecting Inclusion and Pedagogy” (2016) and “Teaching Renewal for Mid-career Faculty: Attending to the Whole Person” (2015).

Catherine holds a PhD in Russian and Second Language Acquisition from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and an MA in Russian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BA in Russian and Spanish from the University of Delaware.

As Senior Associate Provost for Administration and Planning, Carrie Marlin’s portfolio includes key areas of academic management—faculty housing, K–12 schooling priorities, domestic and international emergency response, space planning, and policy development. She oversees Tompkins Hall Nursery and Childcare Center, guides The School at Columbia University, and directs initiatives for Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science, and Engineering. In partnership with the Office of International Risk Management, she develops and manages international travel policies and protocols. Carrie is also the primary liaison to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to these responsibilities, at the Provost’s request, Carrie has served in interim roles as Executive Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and Director of the Office of Work/Life.

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost in 2015, she worked in education and public service in New York City and Washington, D.C., as Senior Director of Strategy and Policy at the New York City Department of Education, Chief of Staff in the New York State Assembly, an English and Journalism teacher in District of Columbia Public Schools, and as a senior advisor on local and national political campaigns. 

Carrie received her BA in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, her MA in Education from Trinity Washington University, and her MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Sen. Carol Ewing Garber is Professor of Movement Sciences and Education in the Department of Biobehavioral Sciences at Teachers College, where she also serves as the Director of the Graduate Program in Applied (Exercise) Physiology and Director of the EXerT Clinic for Exercise Testing and Prescription.  She is a clinical exercise physiologist who studies the benefits of exercise in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases across the lifespan—from toddlers to older adults—and her work centers on people living in low-resourced communities.

Professor Garber is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), American Heart Association, and the National Academy of Kinesiology. She is the author of over 130 published articles and book chapters. Professor Garber is a past Fulbright Scholar, serving at the University of Balamand in Beirut, Lebanon, a past President of ACSM, and she is a recipient of the 2019 Citation Award from ACSM. Professor Garber formerly served on the faculty of Northeastern University and the Brown Alpert School of Medicine.

Sen. Carlos Alonso is Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures. Prior to serving as dean, he was Chair of the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. On the University Senate, Dean Alonso has served on the Commission on Diversity and the Honors and Prizes Committee. 

Dean Alonso received his B.A. from Cornell in Spanish and Latin American Literature and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American literature at Yale. He is the author of Modernity and Autochthony: The Spanish American Regional Novel, and The Burden of Modernity: The Rhetoric of Cultural Discourse in Spanish America, and editor of Julio Cortázar: New Readings. He was the editor of PMLA and edited the Hispanic Review. While at Penn, Dean Alonso received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the university's highest award for pedagogical excellence.

Dean Alonso specializes in 19th and 20th-century Latin American intellectual history and cultural production and in contemporary literary and cultural theory. He has taught the graduate seminar on Literary and Cultural Theory and the course Theories of Culture in Latin America. Under his editorship, the department's Revista Hispánica Moderna received the 2009 Council of Editors of Learned Journals Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement.

Sen. Camille McGriff was elected to represent the Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning (GSAPP) in Spring 2023. She is a native of Fairhope, AL and graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) in 2022 with a dual degree in Writing and Rhetoric and Architectural Studies.

Camille is a dual master’s student at GSAPP, pursuing the Master of Architecture and the Master of Science in Critical, Conceptual, and Curatorial Practices. As a first-year student, Camille’s studio research has ranged from food systems in the prison industrial complex to climate migration, understanding the critical role that architecture plays in the liberation struggles of the twenty-first century. She is a junior design editor for URBAN Magazine and a contributor to Juice Bar magazine.

While at HWS, she served on the Committee on Academic Affairs, a critical experience that cemented her belief in strong cross-disciplinary education and working across campuses and departments on universal issues; she also served on student committees for faculty tenure. She has won many awards for academic excellence in writing and architecture, including the Senior Architecture Prize for Leadership, Service, and Academic Excellence, in 2022. She also served as an upperclassman studio Teaching Assistant for Architectural Studies and as a guest critic for the School of Architecture at Cornell University. She earned Honors in Writing and Rhetoric in 2021 for her research on ekphrasis and its link to the visual and experiential disciplines of art and architecture. Additionally, she was a skipper on the HWS Varsity Sailing Team, for which she made the Academic All-America Team in 2022. In her free time, Camille enjoys reading, drawing, and sailing.

Sen. Bruce Goumain is a French Air Force veteran studying neuroeconomics at the School of General Studies. 

Bruce deeply values the Columbia Experience for students and officers and wants to ensure that all individuals have at their disposal the necessary tools and resources to stay healthy and to thrive academically and professionally. His areas of focus are the availability and accessibility of campus student space, financial aid, access to mental health care, and course search and registration innovation. On the University Senate, Bruce co-chairs the Student Affairs Committee and serves on the Information and Communications Technology and Executive committees. He is a member of the Columbia Alumni Association Board. 

Before joining the French Air Force, Bruce worked in the laboratories of Veolia Water Technologies, focusing on the provision of drinking water in humanitarian emergencies. He also worked for Rotary International, organizing fundraising to support rural electrification and the structural transformation of schools and villages in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Togo. Bruce strongly believes that we must speak up for those whose voices are not heard and that we each have a role to play in reducing the inequalities we witness, remaining conscious of the impact that we have on people and on society.

Sen. Brendan O’Flaherty is Professor of Economics. On the University Senate, he serves on the Structure and Operations Committee and the Elections Commission.

Professor O'Flaherty's research focuses on homelessness, race, and the economics of cities. Before coming to Columbia in 1987, he spent two years as an aide to Kenneth Gibson, the first black mayor of Newark, N.J. He previously served as acting director of finance for the City of Newark and chaired the Program and Planning Committee of the Arts and Sciences at Columbia. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard. 

Sen. Benjamin Orlove, an anthropologist, has conducted fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes since the 1970s and also carried out research in East Africa, the Italian Alps, and Aboriginal Australia. His early work focused on agriculture, fisheries, and rangelands. More recently he has studied climate change and glacier retreat, with an emphasis on water, natural hazards, and the loss of iconic landscapes. In addition to his numerous academic articles and books, his publications include a memoir and a book of travel writing. On the University Senate, Dr. Orlove serves on the Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee.

Orlove taught for many years at the University of California, Davis. At Columbia University, he also teaches in the Master’s Program in Climate and Society, for which he serves as Associate Director. He is a Senior Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and is one of the four co-directors of the Center for Research in Environmental Decisions.

Sen. Avalon Zborovsky-Fenster is a Senior at Barnard College, majoring in political science, and minoring in science, public policy, and ethics. She studies the intersection between technology, law, and ethics, with a particular interest in issues of AI, privacy, and sustainability as they relate to global human rights and justice. On the University Senate, Avalon serves on the Student Affairs Committee and the Commission on the Status of Women.

Before her election to the University Senate, Avalon served as Class President for two years, and was honored for her leadership in the Columbia community as a Bartsch Fellow with the CGT and an Athena Fellow with Barnard's Athena Center for Leadership. Additionally, she has extensive experience in local and federal policy, bringing perspectives from her time in the federal government, private sector policy and regulatory world, and public-interest nonprofit space. She is incredibly passionate about supporting her generation pursue what lights them up, and to ensure they have access to the tools they need to succeed in every way.

Sen. Anne L. Taylor, M.D., joined Columbia University Medical Center in 2007 as Vice Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the John Lindenbaum Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center. In 2014, Dr. Taylor was appointed Senior Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Career Development for the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

As Senior Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Career Development for CUIMC, Dr. Taylor supports faculty recruitment, appointment and promotion processes, professional development and conflict of interest programs for faculty and trainees at the four health sciences schools at CUIMC. Dr. Taylor’s key initiatives include the reorganization of faculty academic tracks, the creation of the Virginia Kneeland Frantz Society for Women Faculty at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, management of conflict of interest and appointment and promotion processes.

A native of New York City, Dr. Taylor received her bachelor’s degree from Hofstra University and studied cello at the Manhattan School of Music. She completed medical school, an internal medicine residency, and a clinical cardiology fellowship at the University of Chicago, with cardiovascular research training at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Iowa. Dr. Taylor’s clinical research focuses on cardiovascular disease in underrepresented minorities and disease in women, as well as the “knowledge gap” in diverse communities, determining how well women in different ethnic and racial groups understand their risk for cardiovascular disease.

Sen. Ann Thornton is Vice Provost and University Librarian for Columbia University in the City of New York, where she is responsible for one of the top five academic research library systems in North America with world-class physical and digital collections and expert staff in support of research, teaching, and learning. On the University Senate, Vice Provost Thornton serves on the Libraries and Digital Resources Committee, and the Elections Commission.

She came to Columbia in June 2015 after serving for nearly two decades at the New York Public Library, where she was most recently the Andrew W. Mellon Director, a position she held since 2012, with responsibility for research and reference services, collection development, preservation, fellowships, and exhibitions. Vice Provost Thornton’s previous roles at the New York Public Library included Director of Reference and Research Services, Associate Director for the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, and Assistant Director of Electronic Resources for the Science, Industry and Business Library.

Early in her career, Vice Provost Thornton served as a systems librarian at the University of Houston Libraries. She was a Leadership Fellow in a program sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and subsequently served on the board of that organization. Additionally, Vice Provost Thornton has chaired the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation and has served on the New York State Education Department’s Board of Regents Advisory Council on Libraries and on the Council of Experts for the National Academic Library and Information Systems Foundation of Bulgaria. She currently serves as chair of the board of governors for the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium.

Sen. Anil K. Lalwani joined the faculty of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2012. On the University Senate, Lalwani serves on the Honors and Prizes Committee, and served previously on the External Relations and Research Policy Committee. 

Dr. Lalwani is considered one of the leading ear surgeons for children and adults in the country. His clinical specialties include cochlear implantation, middle ear implants, chronic ear disease, cholesteatoma, facial nerve disorders, otosclerosis, superior semicircular canal dehiscence, glomus tumors, cerebellopontine angle tumors (e.g. acoustic neuromas), and skull base surgery, and gamma knife therapy. 

Dr. Lalwani earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1985 and subsequently completed is internship in General and Thoracic Surgery at Duke University Medical Center and his residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at UCSF. Following subspecialty training in Neurotology and Skull base surgery, he served as Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Health.

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 President Shafik 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. Andrew R. Marks, MD. is Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics and Clyde '56 and Helen Wu Professor of Molecular Cardiology (in Medicine) at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he is Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics. Dr. Marks holds a B.D. from Amherst College and an MD from Harvard. On the University Senate, Dr. Marks serves on the Faculty Affairs Committee and has served on the Commission on Diversity.

Andrew J. Einstein is a cardiologist, cardiac imager, and researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He serves as Director of Nuclear Cardiology, Cardiac CT, and Cardiac MRI, Director of the Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship, and a tenured Professor of Medicine, with primary appointment in the Department of Medicine and secondary appointment in the Department of Radiology. Born and raised in New Jersey, Dr. Einstein received an A.B. from Princeton University and attended Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he received an M.D. as well as a Ph.D. in the Department of Biomathematical Sciences. His graduate research focused on developing image analysis methodology in microscopy. He also received an M.S. in patient-oriented research/biostatistics from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. After internship and residency in internal medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, he completed fellowship training at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Einstein’s clinical activities are centered on cardiovascular PET, SPECT, CT, and MRI, and he serves on the attending physician staff in the Heart Institute. His research, which uses each of these modalities, focuses on improving the use of imaging in cardiovascular medicine, with particular interests and current funded projects in quality of healthcare, radiation safety, global health, amyloidosis, artificial intelligence, and device development. It is funded by multiple NIH grants, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and industry.

Dr. Einstein is the author or coauthor of over 300 papers and abstracts, in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, BMJ, Circulation, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. This work has been influential in affecting clinical practice, and has been widely reported in the popular media and cited over 16,000 times in the scientific literature. For it, Dr. Einstein has received the American College of Cardiology's Douglas P. Zipes Distinguished Young Scientist Award, the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s Hermann Blumgart Award, the American Federation for Medical Research's Junior Physician Investigator Award, and the Lewis Katz Cardiovascular Research Prize for a Young Investigator.

He is a member of the editorial boards of JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging and the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, and served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. He is frequently invited to lecture on subjects related to cardiovascular imaging, and has addressed organizations such as the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, European Society of Cardiology, International Atomic Energy Agency, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Senate in an AAAS Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy briefing. He has served as a member of study sections of the Center for Scientific Review, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and National Cancer Institute. He is Chair of the Academic Cardiology Section of the American College of Cardiology, and a member of the boards of directors of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and the Cardiovascular Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. He serves as a member of the Congressionally-chartered National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes, and previously served as a voting member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Medical Imaging Drugs Advisory Committee. Dr. Einstein has served as a mentor to over fifty trainees at various stages ranging from high school to junior faculty.

Sen. Andrew Gelman (PhD, Harvard, 1990) is Higgins Professor of Statistics, Professor of Political Science, and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. He has received the Outstanding Statistical Application award from the American Statistical Association, the award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, and the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies award for outstanding contributions by a person under the age of forty.

Professor Gelman's research spans a wide range of topics, including why it is rational to vote; why campaign polls are so variable when elections are so predictable; why redistricting is good for democracy; reversals of death sentences; police stops in New York City; the statistical challenges of estimating small effects; the probability that one vote will be decisive; seats and votes in Congress; social network structure; arsenic in Bangladesh; radon in home basements; toxicology; medical imaging; and methods in surveys, experimental design, statistical inference, computation, and graphics.

The Rev. Dr. Andrea C. White is Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. She has served as Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion and chair of the Black Theology Unit for the American Academy of Religion. Her research specializes in womanist theology and critical theory, philosophy of religion and phenomenology.

Her forthcoming volume is The Scandal of Flesh: Black Women’s Bodies, God, and Politics. She is also the author of The Back of God: A Theology of Otherness in Karl Barth and Paul Ricoeur, and editor of several future volumes including, Political Theology on Edge with Catherine Keller and Clayton Crocket, and The State of Black Theology.

She serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Wabash Center Journal on Teaching, the Black Theology Papers Project, and she is editor of the web forum Love, Struggle Resist, a critical, social and political forum for the progressive multireligious community.

Dr. White is a recipient of both the Lilly Theological Research Faculty Fellowship from The Association of Theological Schools and The Louisville Institute Book Grant for Minority Scholars.

She has delivered lectures in Brazil, Denmark, India, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and across the United States. She sits on the advisory boards for the Karl Barth Society of North America and Logia at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She has served as a member of the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession and with the Theology and Religious Reflection steering committee for the American Academy of Religion. She also serves on the Committee on Teaching about the United Nations and is a founding member of The Carter Center’s Scholars in Action created to address gender violence against women and girls.

Dr. White is a recipient of Emory University’s 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award.

Prior to her appointment at Union, she served on the faculty at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in theology from The University of Chicago Divinity School, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School with a concentration in philosophy of religion, and a Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College with honors in philosophy. She is also an ordained American Baptist minister and served as a church pastor, hospice chaplain, and chaplain for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Sen. Amy Hungerford is the Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is also the Ruth Fulton Benedict Professor of English and Comparative Literature. A scholar of American literature, her first two monographs explore literary engagements with genocide and with religion in the 20th century. Her most recent book, Making Literature Now, examines how social networks—both virtual and traditional—shape contemporary writers’ creative choices and the choices we make about reading. Her current research and writing is about the sociable qualities of solitude. Ongoing work as co-editor of the post-1945 volume of the Norton Anthology of American Literature serves students around the country for whom it is a central course text; her popular, and free, online course, “The American Novel Since 1945,” is enjoyed worldwide.

Sen. Alex Roman is pursuing an M.A. in Education Policy at Teachers College, with a concentration in law and education. He is the son of a public school teacher, who fueled his passion for education reform and challenged him to think critically about the education system. While a student in Chicago Public Schools, Alex witnessed the city close more than 100 public schools in Black and Brown neighborhoods and reopen them as charter schools, effectively displacing students from their neighborhoods and forcing them to attend for-profit charters. This experience pushed him to pursue graduate studies. In 2022, Alex graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.S. in Education Studies, a B.S. in Political Science, and a minor in Chicano/a and Latino/a Studies. He is thrilled to represent Teachers College and looks forward to collaborating with colleagues in the pursuit of progress.

Sen. Alan Yang is a Senior Lecturer in Discipline at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). On the University Senate, he serves on the Education Committee. He teaches the core Quantitative Analysis I & II sequence (introductory statistics and econometrics) and Quantitative Methods in Program Evaluation (applied econometric methods for causal inference) at SIPA.

His research interests include public opinion and political behavior, research methods and statistics, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality studies. His research has appeared in edited volumes and journals such as Political Science Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Social Science Quarterly. His book, Americanizing Latino Politics, Latinoizing American Politics (with Rodolfo de la Garza), was published in 2020 (New York and London: Routledge). He has done statistical consulting work for non-profit, NGO, and academic organizations. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science at Columbia University.

Sen. Akash Kapoor is an MD/MBA candidate at the Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons. Akash is excited to serve and represent the VP&S community on the University Senate. In addition to his role on University Senate, Akash also leads VP&S’s Innovative Medicine Group and serves as the Co-Director of the Columbia-Harlem Homeless Medical Partnership (CHHMP) student-run free clinic.

Before starting medical school, Akash graduated from UCLA with a degree in neuroscience and, subsequently, worked as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Academically, Akash is passionate about learning how to develop and implement novel technologies that can solve our most pressing healthcare challenges. For fun, he likes traveling, snowboarding, rock climbing, and hosting Kash’s Koffee, a free monthly coffee shop for his classmates in his apartment. Please reach out to him at [email protected] if you would like to connect or have any questions.

Sen. Adrian Brügger is Director of the Robert A. W. Carleton Strength of Materials Laboratory, a Columbia University center with a trifold mission of teaching, research, and materials testing. The Carleton Laboratory is the preeminent experimental research center of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. The state-of-the-art strength of materials laboratory supports not only the research and teaching of the Department but also performs critical testing for the global engineering community. Dr. Brügger graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. and an M.S. in civil engineering, both with a concentration in structural engineering. He received his Ph.D. in civil engineering, with a focus on mechanics of materials and health monitoring.

Dr. Brügger's research interests are in the quantification of the internal mechanics of multibody systems in failure-critical structures. He uses neutron diffraction as an elastic strain measurement tool to penetrate deeply into bulk materials and layers of a multi-body system without disturbing the internal mechanics of the sample. Dr. Brügger's is active in various field projects focusing on major infrastructure health monitoring, damage detection, and damage mitigation; this effort includes vibration instrumentation and condition assessments on various large bridges (Manhattan Bridge, Verrazano Narrows Bridge, etc.) and sensitive structures (The New York Times Building, numerous galleries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Most notably, he has been a critical contributor to various research and industry projects focusing on the deterioration of critical infrastructure including but not limited to: Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge main cable forensic studies, FHWA full scale bridge cable accelerated corrosion experiments, MTA/PANYNJ bridge cable dehumidification project, and the MTA/PANYNJ fire effects on main cables of suspension bridges. On the University Senate, Dr. Brügger serves on the Research Officers and Campus Planning and Physical Development committees. 

Adina joined the Office of the Provost in October 2015, and is currently the Associate Provost for Faculty Diversity and Inclusive Pathways. In addition to the faculty diversity portfolio, she leads the university’s new Inclusive Faculty Pathways portfolio, which aims to support and grow Columbia pathways programs, expand access to Columbia graduate programs and improve the climate and support trainees in pursuit of an academic career. This effort builds on her previous work developing the faculty diversity and advancement portfolios in the Office of the Provost.

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost, Adina worked in admissions and student affairs at Columbia, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, for over a decade, most recently at Columbia Engineering as the associate director of Graduate Admissions and Student Affairs for the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department. She also has extensive experience in politics and advocacy, including time at the Children’s Defense Fund New York office and New York’s Working Families Party. Adina is currently the Vice President of the Board of Education of the City School District of New Rochelle.

Adina received her bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Columbia College and her master’s degree in politics and education from Teachers College, where she is currently a doctoral candidate in education policy. Her current research involves the relationship between gender and racial/ethnic diversity at elite post-secondary institutions.

Sen. Adam Cannon is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Cannon joined Columbia in July, 2000. From 2000 to 2005 he was also a visiting scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Cannon came to Columbia after earning a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Cannon’s current research interests are in computer science education, machine learning, and statistical pattern recognition. He is a winner of the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, The Society of Columbia Graduates Great Teacher Award, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science Alumni Association’s Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award.

Sen. Abosede George is the Tow Associate Professor of History at Barnard College. She teaches courses on African migrations, urban history, childhood and youth, and women, gender, and sexuality in African History. A native of Lagos, Nigeria, and a self-identified life-long migrant, she has lived in Zaire, Mali, the United States, and The Netherlands, and she has traveled as an African woman through five of the seven continents. Her articles have appeared in the American Historical Review, the Journal of Social History, Meridians, and The Washington Post among other publications. Her prize-winning book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, was published in 2014 by Ohio University Press. She is currently working on a history of free Black migration from various parts of the African diaspora to Lagos, West Africa across the nineteenth century. Follow The Ekopolitan Project on FB, IG, or Twitter to learn more.