Research Officers Committee

Dr. 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.

Dr. 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.

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

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

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. 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 The Washington Post and by National Geographic Traveler as one of the best 10 books of the year. 

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. He serves on the Executive Committee, co-chairs the Structure and Operations Committee, and serves on the Budget Committee and the Joint Benefits Subcommittee.

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.