Spring/Summer 2018

How a $25-per-week songwriter became the world's most influential record executive

Mark Bittman explains why he thinks our food system is flawed and how he recommends fixing it

US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith '97SOA gives wings to words

Stephen Dubner ’90SOA, coauthor of the popular Freakonomics series, wants to tell you a few things you don’t know

Tableside at the Battle of the Dining Halls

A Presidential Scholar draws science into friendlier territory

Journalist Masha Gessen on memory and Stalin’s Gulag

Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59LAW, ’94HON holds court at the first Columbia University women’s conference

Things to do on and around campus

Associate research scientist Anna Ijjas proposes a radically alternative theory of how our universe came to be

Discarded pharmaceuticals are beginning to contaminate our rivers, ponds, and lakes

A modified bacterial strain of E. coli may prove useful in studying human digestion

A new system that scans Yelp for complaints of food poisoning is helping New York City health inspectors identify and record food-borne illness.

Research briefs

Algae-based, biodegradable clothing could be the next big thing

Martin Lewison '88CC has ridden over 1,665 roller coasters in his lifetime

Rachel Drori '09BUS is changing the way we think about frozen food with startup Daily Harvest

Paul Stephens '09JRN is attempting to build the first long-distance hiking trail through the Caucasus Mountains

An interview contemporary-art historian Francesco Spampinato '06GSAS

May Kesler '82PS appears in Jonathan Givens’s book Dance Across the USA

Alumni on Broadway, summer 2018

Columbians making headlines

Mia Alvar ’07SOA reviews The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner ’01SOA

Leslie Jamison discusses her book The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath

By Uzodinma Iweala ’11PS

An excerpt from paleontologist Steve Brusatte's new book

Lorraine Glennon reviews “Autumn in Venice” by Andrea di Robilant ’79CC, ’80SIPA

P. Roy and Diana Vagelos's gift will help eliminate loans for medical students who qualify for financial aid

Halliday will lead one of the world’s largest networks of researchers devoted to addressing problems rooted in man’s relationship to the natural environment

The women's and men's fencing teams dominated the Ivy League this year

Lisa Rosen-Metsch to succeed Peter Awn as dean of the School of General Studies

Columbia University Irving Medical Center receives largest gift in its history

Rising leaders from around the world will come to campus as part of a yearlong resident program

Some college memories are priceless; others end up on eBay