2024: A Year in Review
As the new year approaches, we’re celebrating our achievements and looking forward to another year of discovery and partnership.
In 2024, Columbia Engineers made great strides in pursuit of our mission: Engineering for Humanity. As the year comes to a close, we look back on just a few of the many highlights.
Research for Impact
A large team of researchers won nearly $40 million to create a revolutionary knee replacement technology through ARPA-H’s Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program. Another team won $41 million to build a wireless bioelectronic device to treat obesity and diabetes through the agency’s Resilient Extended Automatic Cell Therapies (REACT) program. Faculty across the entire School advanced dozens of research projects on AI. We partnered with Capital One to launch the Center for AI and Responsible Financial Innovation and with Dream Sports to launch a center on AI and sports. The Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center (CEEC) celebrated our part in a $62.5 million Department of Energy award to develop a hub for energy storage research. Three faculty members in Electrical Engineering celebrated a $44 million investment in startup funding. Researchers in the Creative Machines Lab developed an AI-driven robot that knows when a human is about to smile — and whose silicon face can smile along with them. Columbia joined Empire AI, a consortium of institutions in New York that will conduct academic research on AI using a $450 million state-of-the-art artificial intelligence computing center.
On Campus
Columbia Engineering hosted a wide range of events as part of NYC Climate Week. We welcomed alumni back to campus for the first-ever reunion of Black alumni and partnered with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia on the symposium, “Generative AI, Free Speech, and Public Discourse.” Researchers and community partners presented at the Center for Smart Streetscapes’ Innovation Summit. Hundreds of researchers, professionals, and fans assembled for a symposium on AI and sports. We welcomed luminaries to campus, including renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. Leaders from the business community continued working with students and faculty through our Tech CEO Lecture Series and Silberstein Family Executive in Residence program.
Education and Community
Four teams– MOBY, ParkinPlay, Thimble, and The Vermont Recreational Center with On-Site Wastewater Treatment–walk us through their projects. (Video: Jane Nisselson)
We celebrated our graduates’ senior design projects. We partnered with the dental school to launch a new program in dental engineering. Along with our colleagues at Columbia Business School, we graduated the first cohort of MBAxMS students. The Columbia University Formula Racing team made an impressive showing at the national competition, and the Columbia Space Institute’s rocketry team brought home a gold (and set its own records) at the inaugural FAR-OUT competition in the Mojave Desert. Our faculty partnered with collaborators across disciplines to teach courses on the social implications of AI and the political impact of algorithms and machine learning. Researchers in the storied Carleton Laboratory worked with the city to restore the pumps in the Morningside Park pond.
Driving the Dialogue
We launched The Lever, a limited-series newsletter featuring faculty perspectives on global challenges. The first series explored solutions for storing renewable energy. We also kicked off the Lecture Series in AI. In one of the first talks, the legendary deep-learning researcher Yann LeCun, who is Meta’s chief AI scientist, delivered a talk to more than 1,000 attendees. Media outlets across the world tapped our researchers’ expertise in articles and video on topics from digital twins in biomedical research to desalination technology and intelligent robots— and every aspect of AI. Kristen Myers and Christine Hendon challenged us to imagine how engineers can improve women’s health, and Pierre Gentine asked if AI could save the environment. Tal Danino dazzled readers with an art book featuring research inspired images from his lab.
Celebrating Faculty Excellence
Columbia Engineering celebrated the election of faculty members Jingguang Chen and Jeannette Wing to the National Academy of Engineering and congratulated Marco Giometto, Alex Urban, and Brian Smith on their NSF CAREER awards. We commended Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic on winning a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York Investigator Award. We were pleased to share that Oleg Gang was named a 2024 Vannevar Bush Fellow, that Ke Cheng received the Coulter Award, that Christos Papadimitriou and Michael Weinstein were named Simons Society Senior Fellows. We congratulated Vishal Misra on his appointment to vice dean of computing and artificial intelligence and John Kymissis on being named vice dean of infrastructure and innovation, and Kymissis' election to the National Academy of Inventors.