Tradition, Innovation, and Growth

Columbia is a leader in the rapidly growing field of AI. The recent Columbia AI Summit showcased the University’s wide-ranging expertise in pioneering AI.

Columbia physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi discovered nuclear magnetic resonance in the 1930s, which led to the development of the MRI now used to diagnose and monitor medical conditions.

In 1951, Columbia’s Charles Townes came up with the idea for the device that led to the laser and earned him a Nobel Prize.

Before and during the Second World War, Columbia scientists played a pivotal role in the development of nuclear science, which led to the first atom bomb.

In 1943, bacitracin was discovered at Columbia. This 80-year-old antibiotic ointment is still vital today.

Columbia engineers led by Shree Nayar revolutionized digital photography with a new kind of imaging now used in over one billion smartphones worldwide.

Professor Louis Brus won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on quantum dots, which now help power flat-screen TVs, LED lamps, and technology used to remove tumors.

Professor Joachim Frank won the Nobel Prize for his role in developing a way to capture high-resolution 3D images of molecules, revolutionizing biology and drug discovery in the process.

Since its founding in 1948 as the world’s first institutional home of oral history, Columbia’s Center for Oral History Research has been a resource for scholars, students, artists, and many others to mine the living history of New York City and of our world.

Columbia’s more-than-100-year-old Core Curriculum gives undergraduate students a grounding in the frontiers of science, as well as 2,800 years of literature and philosophy.

Frank Tannenbaum was professor of Latin American history at Columbia from 1935 until his retirement in 1962 and a founder of the University Seminars, a series of convenings where leading thinkers debate vital issues facing society.

Columbia Law School faculty and alumni were instrumental in litigating Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that led to the desegregation of public schools. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch is an alumnus of Columbia College, and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was Columbia’s first tenured female law professor. Three chief justices of the Supreme Court have attended Columbia.

The late Professor Robert Jervis was instrumental in creating the modern field of psychology of international relations, providing insight into arms races and wars.

Columbia continues to engage with leaders in politics, offering students the chance to learn from those who have led. Former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Mike Pompeo both teach on our faculty.

Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health is guiding a global quest to enhance health as the world’s population ages—and transforming how we think about aging in the process.

The Columbia Climate school is a global leader in earth sciences. Researcher Marie Tharp created some of the first maps of the ocean floor while at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, now part of the school.

Columbia School of Social Work has worked with institutions in Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Ohio to generate evidence about how to prevent and treat opioid use disorder.