Full time research for doctoral students.
Conflict Resilience. Developing the comfort and skills necessary to respond to disagreements and mis-alignments is essential for leaders and stage managers. Through a series of discussions, experienced guests, reading, role-playing, and in-class exercises, this workshop style class will present an overview of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Restorative Process theory and techniques with a practical focus on building our skills and comfort level to be able to reframe conflict as a chance for learning, understanding, and change.
Exceeding EDI. The impact of incorporating Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging into the commercial theater industry in a post George Floyd era. As stage managers, it is crucial that there is a framework for supporting the evolving identities and needs of the many populations present in a theater setting. Through a series of articles, in-class discussions, written reflections and conversations with working professionals, we will develop an understanding of a variety of social issues that currently exist in the industry while building a toolkit on how to navigate them.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging (DEIAB) is more than a series of practices; it incorporates values and principles that run counter to the traditional, exclusionary power dynamics that have impacted the commercial theatre industry for decades. With a focus on creating or re-establishing positive relationships amongst all community members, Critical Issues in Stage Management considers real-world proficiencies in diversity, equity, inclusion and consent-forward practices that have direct application to our work as Stage Managers.
During this course we will examine the impact of incorporating Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging into the commercial theater industry in a post George Floyd era. As stage managers, it is crucial that there is a framework for supporting the evolving identities and needs of the many populations present in a theater setting. Through a series of articles, group projects, in-class discussions, written reflections and conversations with working professionals, we will develop an understanding of a variety of social issues that currently exist in the industry while building a toolkit on how to navigate them.
Prerequisites: PHYS G6037-G6038. Relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.
TBD
This seminar is designed to provide an in-depth experiential learning experience concurrent with students’ public health or healthcare management internship. The seminar provides a supportive framework designed to enhance students’ professional and leadership experience by exploring common themes encountered in the fieldwork setting. The seminar will address the public health core competencies of leadership, communications, cultural competence, and professionalism.
The semester will begin with discussion of students’ project sites including project overview, goals for the field work experience and anticipated challenges. Focusing on professionalism in the workplace, students will assess how the internship aligns with their overarching learning goals. Students will also gain insights into successful leadership styles and skills through the design and implementation of an in-depth interview of a professional in their chosen field, a panel discussion of alumni in the field, and by developing and practicing oral and written communication and negotiation skills.
Throughout the course, students will develop a presentation that both demonstrates and reflects upon knowledge acquired through the internship experience. The semester culminates with students presenting the highlights of their project work.
This course is only open to students who either: (a) are required to complete a practicum as part of their degree, and have already completed their required practicum experience, and who have an internship (in a different setting or with different learning goals than their practicum) during the fall semester of their final year of school; OR (b) are enrolled in a Master’s program which does not require a practicum, and would like to take part in an optional internship during the fall semester of their final year of school."
Course pre-requisites: Completion of APeX (if required) and have an internship (in a different setting or with different learning goals than their practicum or APeX) during the semester.
Required permissions: This course is only open to students who have already completed their required practicum/APeX experience (if required), and who have an internship (in a different setting or with different learning goals than their practicum) during the fall semester. Students must submit a letter from their employer to join the waitlist for this course.
Sec. 1: Ethnomusicology; Sec. 2: Historical Musicology; Sec. 3: Music Theory; Sec. 4: Music Cognition; Sec. 5: Music Philosophy.
Sec. 1: Ethnomusicology; Sec. 2: Historical Musicology; Sec. 3: Music Theory; Sec. 4: Music Cognition; Sec. 5: Music Philosophy.
This course will provide an introduction to the basics of regression analysis. The class will proceed systematically from the examination of the distributional qualities of the measures of interest, to assessing the appropriateness of the assumption of linearity, to issues related to variable inclusion, model fit, interpretation, and regression diagnostics. We will primarily use scalar notation (i.e. we will use limited matrix notation, and will only briefly present the use of matrix algebra).
This course will provide students with a thorough introduction to applied regression analysis, which has been a commonly used and almost standard method for analyzing continuous response data in Public Health research. Topics covered include simple linear regression, multiple linear regression, analysis of variance, parameter estimation, hypothesis testing, interpretation of estimates, interaction terms, variable recoding, examination of validity of underlying assumptions, regression diagnostics, model selection, logistic regression analysis, generalized linear models as well as discussions on relationships of variables in research and using regression results for either prediction or estimation purposes. Real data are emphasized and analyzed using SAS.
Selected topics in IEOR. Content varies from year to year. May be repeated for credit.
Selected topics in IEOR. Content varies from year to year. May be repeated for credit.
This course is open to Ph.D. students and advanced M.A. students conducting research on
aspects of the modern, culture, politics, and history of the Middle East and adjacent regions. Its
temporal focus is the three centuries from roughly the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth
century, but those whose research deals with other periods are welcome to participate.
The course has three aims. The first is to provide an opportunity to read and engage with some
of the more recent scholarship in the field, especially work published in the last ten years,
organized around several current academic debates. The second is to provide a seminar in
which those preparing a master’s paper, M.Phil. examination list, or Ph.D. prospectus, or a term
paper intended for conference presentation or publication, can develop and present a draft of
their work. We will choose readings to accompany each paper, focusing on recent scholarship
that informs or extends the issues addressed in the research. The course will enable students to
clarify and test the questions that shape their work and better situate them within current
scholarship. The third aim is to train students in the art of framing questions and shaping
debate for an advanced, reading-intensive graduate-level seminar.
The course is intended primarily for MESAAS students. Those from other departments are
welcome but require the permission of the instructor to enroll.
The main objective of this course is to provide Columbia University's Clinical & Translational Science award trainees, students, and scholars with skills and knowledge that will optimize their chances of entering into a satisfying academic career. The course will emphasize several methodological and practical issues related to the development of a science career. The course will also offer support and incentives by facilitating timely use of CTSA resources, obtaining expert reviews on writing and curriculum vitae, and providing knowledge and resources for the successful achievement of career goals.
The course aims to present the fundamental principles behind probability theory and lay the foundations for various kinds of statistical/biostatistical courses such as statistical inference, multivariate analysis, regression analysis, clinical trials, asymptotics, and so on. Students will learn how to implement probability methods in various types of applications.
Contemporary biostatistics and data analysis depends on the mastery of tools for computation, visualization, dissemination, and reproducibility in addition to proficiency in traditional statistical techniques. The goal of this course is to provide training in the elements of a complete pipeline for data analysis. It is targeted to MS, MPH, and PhD students with some data analysis experience.
The first portion of this course provides an introductory-level mathematical treatment of the fundamental principles of probability theory, providing the foundations for statistical inference. Students will learn how to apply these principles to solve a range of applications. The second portion of this course provides a mathematical treatment of (a) point estimation, including evaluation of estimators and methods of estimation; (b) interval estimation; and (c) hypothesis testing, including power calculations and likelihood ratio testing.
This course focuses on methods for the analysis of survival data, or time-to-event data. Survival analysis is a method for analyzing survival data or failure (death) time data, that is time-to-event data, which arises in a number of applied fields, such as medicine, biology, public health, epidemiology, engineering, economics, and demography. A special course of difficulty in the analysis of survival data is the possibility that some individual may not be observed for the full time to failure. Instead of knowing the failure time t, all we know about these individuals is that their time-to-failure exceeds some value y where y is the follow-up time of these individuals in the study. Students in this class will learn how to make inference for the event times with censored. Topics to be covered include survivor functions and hazard rates, parametric inference, life-table analysis, the Kaplan-Meier estimator, k-sample nonparametric test for the equality of survivor distributions, the proportional hazards regression model, analysis of competing risks and bivariate failure-time data.
This course will introduce the statistical methods for analyzing censored data, non-normally distributed response data, and repeated measurements data that are commonly encountered in medical and public health research. Topics include estimation and comparison of survival curves, regression models for survival data, logit models, log-linear models, and generalized estimating equations. Examples are drawn from the health sciences.
With the pilot as a focal point, this course explores the opportunities and challenges of telling and sustaining a serialized story over a protracted period of time with an emphasis on the creation, borne out of character, of the quintessential premise and the ongoing conflict, be it thematic or literal, behind a successful series.
Early in the semester, students may be required to present/pitch their series idea. During the subsequent weeks, students will learn the process of pitching, outlining, and writing a television pilot, that may include story breaking, beat-sheets or story outline, full outlines, and the execution of either a thirty-minute or hour-long teleplay. This seminar may include reading pages and giving notes based on the instructor but may also solely focus on the individual process of the writer.
Students may only enroll in one TV Writing workshop per semester.
Before capitalism, there was commercial society. This course examines European debates about commerce, luxury, and social organization from the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth centuries. We will survey a range of theoretical perspectives on the new forms of commercial sociability and political life emerging in Europe, whether triumphant, despairing, or ambivalent.
This course covers the fundamental principles and techniques of experimental designs in clinical studies. This is a required course for MS, DrPH and Ph.D. in Biostatistics. Topics include reliability of measurement, linear regression analysis, parallel groups design, analysis of variance (ANOVA), multiple comparison, blocking, stratification, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), repeated measures studies; Latin squares design, crossover study, randomized incomplete block design, and factorial design.
This course introduces students to advanced computational and statistical methods used in the design and analysis of high-dimensional genetic data, an area of critical importance in the current era of BIG DATA. The course starts with a brief background in genetics, followed by in depth discussion of topics in genome-wide linkage and association studies, and next-generation sequencing studies. Additional topics such as network genetics will also be covered. Examples from recent and ongoing applications to complex traits will be used to illustrate methods and concepts. Students are required to read relevant papers as assigned by the instructor, and each student is required to present a paper during class. Students are also required to work on a project related to the course material, with midterm evaluation of the progress.
We will use one main textbook: The fundamentals of Modern Statistical Genetics by Laird and Lange (Springer, 2012). For further reading, an excellent book is also Handbook of Statistical Genetics, Volume 1 (Wiley, 2007). Another good book is Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Genetic Analysis by Ken Lange (Springer 2002).
A comprehensive overview of methods of analysis for binary and other discrete response data, with applications to epidemiological and clinical studies. It is a second level course that presumes some knowledge of applied statistics and epidemiology. Topics discussed include 2 × 2 tables, m × 2 tables, tests of independence, measures of association, power and sample size determination, stratification and matching in design and analysis, interrater agreement, logistic regression analysis.
This course continues the actor’s work of experiencing voice and text in a free body as a means to develop versatile and transformative speech. Students will deepen and refine their knowledge of the phonemes of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as well as the ability to categorize and utilize Lexical Sets in pursuit of a dialect/accent. Students will demonstrate their ability to notate texts and transcribe dialects and accents into both IPA and practically apply the framework of the Four Pillars and the Voice Recipe.
The student will use these tools, supplemented by handouts, video & audio resources and independent research, to study several accents/dialects in class as well as at least one additional independently researched accent/dialect. The goal of the class is to expand upon the actor’s choices of speech and vocal expression and to acquaint her/him with the resources necessary to truthfully portray an individual utilizing a dialect/accent on stage or screen.
Students will develop their own unique process for learning accents and dialects
, as well as efficiently and effectively applying their progression to texts via a combination of practice sentences, scene work, conversation, improvisation, cold readings, and a prepared monologue. Students will complete the course having created a personal, in-depth method for researching and performing a role in which an accent or dialect is required.
Students will do self-directed and supported research as part of their study. They will consciously and intelligently assimilate this contextual research into their embodiment choices. The final project is a presentation of their research and the sharing of a monologue that is ideally
written in the student’s selected dialect or accent
.
This is an applied statistical methods course. The course will introduce main techniques used in sampling practice, including simple random sampling, stratification, systematic sampling, cluster sampling, probability proportional to size sampling, and multistage sampling. Using national health surveys as examples, the course will introduce and demonstrate the application of statistical methods in analysing across-sectional surveys and repeated and longitudinal surveys, and conducting multiple imputation for missing data in large surveys. Other topics will include methods for variance estimation, weighting, post-stratification, and non-sampling errors. If time allows, new developments in small area estimation and in the era of data science will also be discussed.
Test Course for Vergil Launch Demonstration
This is a course at the intersection of statistics and machine learning, focusing on graphical models. In complex systems with many (perhaps hundreds or thousands) of variables, the formalism of graphical models can make representation more compact, inference more tractable, and intelligent data-driven decision-making more feasible. We will focus on representational schemes based on directed and undirected graphical models and discuss statistical inference, prediction, and structure learning. We will emphasize applications of graph-based methods in areas relevant to health: genetics, neuroscience, epidemiology, image analysis, clinical support systems, and more. We will draw connections in lecture between theory and these application areas. The final project will be entirely “hands on,” where students will apply techniques discussed in class to real data and write up the results.
This one-semester course introduces basic applied descriptive and inferential statistics. The first part of the course includes elementary probability theory, an introduction to statistical distributions, principles of estimation and hypothesis testing, methods for comparison of discrete and continuous data including chi-squared test of independence, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and their non-parametric equivalents. The second part of the course focuses on linear models (regression) theory and their practical implementation.
MFA acting students will tackle verse drama and heightened language. We will spend much of our time investigating Shakespeare’s writing, with a focus on King Lear and Much Ado about Nothing, and will weave in contemporary heightened language texts throughout the semester.
Goals
To develop students into keen interpreters of heightened theatrical language, both classical and contemporary
To enable students to express their instinctive emotional responses to the rhythms, sounds and the mysteries contained in great language texts
To bring character and the specific imaginative world of each play alive thru the language
To foster each actor’s unique voice
This course introduces sequential designs for clinical trials in drug development. This course is designed for advanced Master's, DrPH, and PhD students in biostatistics. The overall learning objective is to equip students with the techniques to construct and evaluate sequential designs from a statistical perspective, although clinical relevance will be emphasized. The course consists of two parts. The first part is an in-depth study of the classical group-sequential designs, which are primarily applicable in large randomized phase III trials. The second part presents selected advanced topics on a variety of sequential procedures, also with an emphasis on clinical applications.
The seminar introduces graduate students to works of ancient art and architecture held in museum collections. It explores the modern history of their study as antiquities, a category which required a detailed connoisseurship set within a framework of newly arising aesthetic and racial theories and classifications that accompanied imperial archaeological endeavour. The seminar’s focus is on Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Egyptian and Greek antiquities, as ancient works in their original context and as extracted objects that mark an imperial trail. Students will also be introduced to the development of archaeological field methods within the colonial context, and archaeology’s varied forms of visual documentation which became instrumental to imperial knowledge production: architectural and scientific illustrations, excavation images, and archaeological photography, and by the early twentieth century, the introduction of aerial photography as a way of visualizing sites and ruins. Taking ancient works and their display as a starting point, the seminar also explores the ways in which archaeology and the collecting of antiquities were inextricably linked to the technologies and economies of empire and colonialism. Reading and discussions include museum histories and theories of collecting, as well as the history and theories of archaeology and ancient art. Permission of the instructor is required before registration. Please submit a seminar application to the Department of Art History and Archaeology.
Students in this course will learn and practice the fundamental methods and concepts of the randomized clinical trial: protocol development, randomization, blindedness, patient recruitment, informed consent, compliance, sample size determination, crossovers, collaborative trials. Each student prepares and submits the protocol for a real or hypothetical clinical trial.
Clinical trials are the pilars of clinical research. The main objective of this course is to prepare researchers to design and conduct complex clinical trials that yield valid and reliable results. The course emphasizes on several methodological and practical issues related to the design and analysis of clinical experiments. The course builds on the knowledge and skills gained in the course Randomized Clinical Trial (P8140). The objective of this course is to provide students with working knowledge of certain methodological issues that arise in designing a Clinical Trial. Topics include: Design of small studies (Phase I and II studies), Interim analyses and group sequential methods, Design of survival studies, Multiple outcome measures, Equivalency Trials, Multi-center studies, and trials with multiple outcome measures.
A good grasp of the fundamentals of Population Genetics is crucial for an understanding of any field of human genetics. This is precisely the aim of this course: to provide to students the key elements of Population Genetics with a view to equip them with the right tools to understand the field of genetics in general and to pursue further studies in human genetics. The course uses various evolutionary principles to explain key population genetics concepts.
The course will introduce students to statistical models and mthods for longitudinal data, i.e., repeatedly measured data over time or under different conditions. The topics will include design and sample size calculation, Hotelling's T^2, multivariate analysis of variance, multivariate linear regression (Generalized linear models), models for correlation, unbalanced repeated measurements, Mixed effects models, EM algorithm, methods for non-normally distributed data, Generalized estimating equations, Generalized linear mixed models, and Missing data.
This colloquium provides an intensive exploration of the Atlantic World during the early modern era. Readings will attend to the sequence of contact, conquest, and dispossession that enabled the several European empires to gain political and economic power. In this regard, particular attention will be given to the role of commerce and merchant capitalism in the formation of the Atlantic World. The course will focus also, however, on the dynamics of cultural exchange, on the two-way influences that pushed the varied peoples living along the Atlantic to develop new practices, new customs, and new tastes. Creative adaptations in the face of rapid social and cultural change will figure prominently in the readings. Students may expect to give sustained attention the worlds Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans both made together and made apart.
In this course, you will learn to design and build relational databases in MySQL and to write and optimize queries using the SQL programming language. Application of skills learned in this course will be geared toward research and data science settings in the healthcare field; however, these skills are transferable to many industries and application areas. You will begin the course examining the pitfalls of using Excel spreadsheets as a data storage tool and then learn how to build properly-designed relational databases to eliminate the issues related to spreadsheets and maintain data integrity when storing and modifying data. You will then learn two aspects of the SQL programming language: 1) the data manipulation language (DML), which allows you to retrieve data from and populate data into database tables (e.g., SELECT, INSERT INTO, DELETE, UPDATE, etc.), and 2) the data definition language (DDL), which allows you to create and modify tables in a database (e.g., CREATE, ALTER, DROP, etc.). You will additionally learn how to optimize SQL queries for best performance, use advanced SQL functions, and utilize SQL within common statistical software programs: R and SAS.
Data is most useful when it can tell a story. Health analytics merges technologies and skills used to deliver business, clinical and programmatic insights into the complex components that drive medical outcomes, costs and oversight. By focusing on business intelligence and developing tools to evaluate clinical procedures, devices, and programs, organizations can use comparative and outcomes data to strengthen financial performance. This information can improve the way healthcare is evaluatedand delivered for better outcomes across the spectrum of health industries.
In this course, students will learn SAS as a tool to manipulate and analyze healthcare data and begin to understand what clinical and public health interventions work best for improving health, for example. Students will learn how to organize and analyze data to inform the practices of healthcare providers and policymakers to make evidence-based resource allocation decisions.Comparative & Effectiveness Outcomes Research (CEOR) certificate students will take this course inpreparation for the capstone class.SAS basics (e.g., creating SAS datasets and new variables, sorting, merging, reporting) and advanced statistics (e.g., using a logistical regression to create propensity scores for matched cohort analyses) will be covered.
This is an advanced graduate seminar in Economic Sociology looking at new developments in this field. It addresses the disciplinary division of labor in which economists study value and sociologists study values; and it rejects the pact whereby economists study the economy and sociologists study social relations in which they are embedded.
.
Applications of behavioral insights are expanding rapidly across civic, medical, social, corporate, educational, and economic professions. This class covers the underlying theories for behavioral insights, using scientific and real-world examples of applications from multiple disciplines and locations. The course will also cover methods for behavioral implementation and evaluation, focusing particularly on healthcare policy perspectives. Students will learn a broad range of strategies through a highly interactive format, taught partially in a classroom setting in addition to remote asynchronous and synchronous sessions. Students will gain experience designing and developing their own evidence- based behavioral interventions as a part of a semester-long project.
The course is taught in three phases. The first phase will introduce fundamentals of behavioral science and evidence-based policy. Students will then spend the majority of the course on examples of behavioral insights such as nudges in practice, in a healthcare context and beyond. The course will end with sessions on practical applications, where students will learn to identify appropriate situations for behavioral interventions and produce a final project in a chosen context.
What happens to a body stilled in space, when it takes a shape and holds it? How does its relationship to public space change? How is its transformation attenuated when the body is in formation with other bodies, a breathing still life of people and props? This Graduate Seminar in Performance and Related Media will use the question of a body’s stillness as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between dance, sculpture, collaborative movement, and performance art. Through core readings and writings, we will discuss unique possibilities of representation and challenges this form enables, and the prominent role it has been taking within the visual arts in recent years. Students will engage with a variety of aesthetic strategies and formal techniques such as movement workshops, sensory exercises, wearable sculptures, collaboration, scores, and group meditation. Studio work will focus on concrete intersections between the body and the object, and case studies chosen to encourage students to think of movement as a form of resistance, and to consider the political implication of collaborative work that unfolds over time. Performativity will be defined widely, and no prior experience is required.
Courses on public opinion and political behavior (including the GR8210 seminar taught by Professor Shapiro) ordinarily move briskly through a wide array of topics having to do with how American tend to think and act. This class has a narrower scope but tries to delve more deeply into the literature. We focus on four topics that are arguably crucial understanding contemporary American politics (and perhaps the politics of other times and places).
The first topic addresses what might be thought of as the legacies of slavery: prejudice, resentment, racial/ethnic group identification, issue preferences on topics that are directly or indirectly connected to race/ethnicity, and group differences in political behavior.
The second topic considers the literature on partisanship and polarization, as well as related topics on “macropartisan” change and party realignment. What are the causes of micro- and macropartisan change, and what are its consequences?
The third topic is support for democratic norms, civil liberties, and respect for the rights of unpopular groups. How deeply committed are Americans to democratic values and constitutional rights?
The fourth topic is the influence of media on public opinion, a vast topic that includes the effects of advertising, news, social media, narrative entertainment, and so forth.
Although we will be focusing on just four broad topics, time constraints nevertheless prevent us from covering more than a fraction of each scholarly literature. Students are encouraged to read beyond the syllabus, and I am happy to offer suggestions.
From 1970 until today, America’s prison and jail population has increased sevenfold, from some 300,000 to around 2.2 million adults and children behind bars. Accounting for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants, but about 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated inhabitants, the United States is the most incarcerating society in human history. The U.S. federal and state governments imprison more people and at higher rates than do any other governments on the planet, and they do so today more than they did at any other period in American history.
This astounding amount of human confinement (commonly called “mass incarceration”) disproportionately impacts the polity’s poorest communities of color—especially young Black males—which suffer from chronic conditions and infectious disease; face higher mortality rates; and experience, because of criminal records, less opportunity to secure gainful employment, stable housing, access to safety net programs, and education. Female incarceration over the past few decades has grown at twice the rate of male incarceration, and black women, specifically, are twice as likely as white women to serve time. Imprisonment exposes people to a wide range of circumstances proving detrimental to long-term physical and mental health, like inadequate sanitation, poor ventilation, and solitary confinement. And most formerly incarcerated people return to their communities with deep wounds and new traumas resulting from incarcerated life and from isolation through long separations from families and social supports.
This course sits at the intersection of public health, policy, and law. The course will explore the full spectrum of causes and costs of mass incarceration as a public health crisis. This course will examine how exposures to different structures of the American criminal punishment apparatus (e.g., law enforcement, jail, prison, or detention centers, community supervision) shape the health of people, families, and society. Observing mass incarceration as an epidemic, this course will adopt a useful public-health model of prevention to contemplate a concerted approach consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies for unwinding mass human imprisonment while advancing enhanced public health for the nation’s most disempowered members. This course will pay special attention to acutely at-risk populations, including detained youth and youth of incarcerated adults, pregnant incarcerated people, and the elderly. And the role that
The Course introduces students to the fundamentals of case competitions and prepares them to compete in select case competitions over the course of the year. Case competitions afford students the opportunity to apply classroom learning to dynamic health care organizational and industry problems. The Course covers topics ranging from the framework for breaking down cases to common analytical techniques and presentation skills. We will build the foundational skills for students to prepare and deliver comprehensive, professional analyses in competitive settings.
Who gets what and why? Policy makers and stakeholders in the healthcare space must make difficult decisions involving trade-offs that are often controversial. By exploring a series of ethical frameworks and contentious healthy policy issues, students will learn to apply a systematic process of ethical analysis to justify policies in a legitimate way. Through a dynamic teaching approach involving case studies, role playing and active discussion, we will explore how acceptability and feasibility of controversial policies can be enhanced to promote health equity using tools from distributive justice, procedural justice and bioethics. Topics of discussion include migrant health/migration policy, rationing at the VA, using algorithmic fairness in policy design and nudging in the safety-net.
This seminar is designed as an overview of the major debates in Judicial Politics, with deeper
coverage of a selection of topics. The primary goal of the course is to familiarize students with the
principal questions being asked by scholars in this subfield, the methodological approaches
employed, and the avenues available for future research. The primary focus is on law and courts as
political institutions and judges as political actors. We will examine decision making and power
relations within courts, within the judicial hierarchy, and within the constitutional system. While
we will concentrate on U.S. courts, we will also cover some material on other courts. We will aim
to clarify and probe the puzzles, theories, methods, and evidence presented in the various texts and
to assess the contributions they make to an understanding of judicial politics. We will explore
issues such as research design, causal inference, the role of theory, and the nature of political
science argument, in ways relevant throughout political science. This course will have a seminar
format, though I will occasionally lecture on material as necessary. Other than that, my role is to
moderate and guide discussion, relying on you to do your part.
Popular media routinely tout imminent breakthroughs that often fizzle. In this course, we examine advances that indisputably changed medical practice in the last quarter of the 20th century through case histories. The case histories suggest that protracted,
multiplayer
innovations – not solitary breakthroughs – produce transformational results. Yet venturesome individuals who do not follow the crowd remain crucial. Engaging stories make the vast number of facts presented in the case histories memorable. But the course treats learning new facts mainly as a valuable byproduct. Rather, we rely on the case histories in two more subtle ways, namely: (1) developing skills and judgment and (2) sharpening goals and aspirations.
Investigation of contemporary composition topics through invited guest lectures, student and faculty presentations, listening sessions, and professional development workshops. DMA students only also receive one-on-one weekly composition lessons during which they will develop individual projects in composition (lessons are offered for the first three years of the DMA).
By studying healthcare innovations within the context of health reform, students can learn how novel approaches can be integrated into reform strategies to overcome systemic inefficiencies, enhance equity in healthcare delivery, and ultimately contribute to the goal of improving health systems. This approach encourages students to think creatively and practically about transforming healthcare systems to deliver improved outcomes and better serve the needs of populations, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The course is structured around the analytical framework of five policy levers of financing, payment, organization, regulation, and persuasion, as critical determinants of health system performance developed by Roberts, Hsiao, Berman & Reich.
This course offers a sample of historical research on debates around African-American intelligence, mental health, family organization, and other social scientific controversies from the era of slavery to the late 20th century. The principal assignment is a lesson plan, instructions for which will be supplied on the CourseWorks site.
Please note that you may not take this course as an auditor or pass/fail without the permission of the instructor.
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences guidelines may be found at
http://gsas.columbia.edu/
. Those for the history department may be found at
http://history.columbia.edu/graduate/index.html
.
This class will introduce students to principles, methods, and applications of health technology assessment (HTA). Students will learn (1) definitions and components of HTA and its history in the United States; (2) approaches to measurement of health benefits and costs; (3) methods of economic evaluation in HTA, including cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and budget impact analysis; (4) HTA agencies and processes in selected countries outside of the U.S. We will discuss advantages and disadvantages of different methods and metrics in HTA, as well as challenges and controversies regarding their role in health technology adoption decisions. Students will review recent health technology adoption decisions and discuss the future of HTA and economic evaluation in the U.S.
This class is intended for students to develop composing skills for creating music “between the keys” (or “outside the keys”) of a traditionally tuned piano or organ. We will be analyzing relevant works and techniques of the present and of the past. Students compose and perform/present their own music influenced by these works and techniques. We will start with quartertones and with music independent from Western traditions.
This course introduces the fundamental physical principles that govern the behavior of the earth's atmosphere and climate. Topics to be studied include the general circulation of the atmosphere, motions on a rotating sphere, atmospheric thermodynamics, radiative transfer, the basic chemistry and physics of air pollution, the hydrologic cycle, climate dynamics and synoptic weather. The effects of these systems on public health, including mental health, rates of exercise, infectious disease, allergens and asthma, heat morbidity and mortality, will be assessed throughout the course.
What does interaction have to do to storytelling? How do we tell stories within media that are non-linear, including games, virtual reality, and immersive theater? How can we craft narratives that emerge from the dynamics of interaction, narratives experienced through exploration and choice? What design strategies exist regarding an understanding of character, plot, drama, time, space, and event within interactive fictions? This course will take a close look at the mechanics of storytelling within dynamic media, exploring connections between interactivity and narrative experience. The course will examine examples ranging from the design of Live Action Role Playing games to massively multi-player experiences, from hypertext to tarot cards, from Oculus to Punchdrunk. Content will be delivered through lectures, reading, discussion, case studies, and small studio-based exercises. Elective open to all SOA students.
This course introduces students to the basic principles and practices of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. This field encompasses the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of chemical, physical, and biological hazards arising in and from the workplace, home, and ambient environments. The course content encompasses many diverse aspects of the field such as the inhalation hazards of gases and vapors, the effects of particle size and morphology on aerodynamic behavior, respiratory system deposition, and disease risk, factors influencing dermal permeation of chemicals, biological monitoring for chemicals and their metabolites, and approaches to measurement and associated instrumentation. This course is intended to provide a basic understanding of the field for students in Public Health disciplines, and is the starting point for students who may choose to pursue occupational and environmental hygiene as a career.
Molecular epidemiology is an interdisciplinary research approach that incorporates advanced laboratory methods into epidemiology to identify causes of disease and facilitate intervention. It is increasingly utilized as a tool to understand interactions between external ‘environmental’ exposures and genetic and other susceptibility factors, and to identify ‘at-risk’ populations and individuals. This course will cover conceptual and methodological issues in molecular epidemiology including the application of biomarkers to the study of disease causation, risk assessment, and prevention. The course covers principles in the selection and validation of biomarkers, study design and statistical methods in data analysis including gene-environment interactions, biological sample collection, storage, and banking, and current laboratory methods for biomarker analysis. These principles will be illustrated using examples from current molecular epidemiologic research in cancer, neurodevelopment, childhood asthma, screening, risk assessment and disease prevention. Students will gain proficiency and experience in critically evaluating key papers in molecular epidemiologic studies.
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the molecular events associated with chemically-induced degenerative and proliferative diseases.
Prerequisites: ECON G6411 and G6412. Students will make presentations of original research.
Review of continuum mechanics in Cartesian coordinates; tensor calculus and the calculus of variation; large deformations in curvilinear coordinates; electricity problems and applications.
This course explains the toxic effects of chemicals (including drugs and other agents) on living organisms. An overview of the history, principles, mechanisms and regulatory applications of toxicology is provided. Also, the absorption, distribution and excretion of toxins are described. The toxic effects of chemicals (including cancer) on the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems and development forms the major portion of the course. Members of chemical classes such as solvents, metals, pesticides, air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone), radiation, plants, fungi, venoms and pharmaceuticals are used as examples. Environmental toxicology form the primary emphasis, but aspects of occupational, food, pharmaceutical and clinical toxicology are also included.
An optional addition hour for credit is provided for those students needing a background in anatomy, histology, chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, and the normal physiology of the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems.
Prerequisites: G6215 and G6216. Open-economy macroeconomics, computational methods for dynamic equilibrium analysis, and sources of business cycles.
Digital Storytelling III: Immersive Production is a mix of theory and practice. Teams of students work to design, build and deploy a digital storytelling experience that is staged for an audience at the end of the semester. The course combines project work, mentors, emerging technologies and collaborative methods to create a dynamic hands-on immersive environment that mixes story and code.
How should society regulate environmental health risks? Some argue that the health of the citizenry is paramount, and that the role of government should be to protect against any possibility of harm. Others back an approach based on a full accounting of the benefits and costs of environmental protection. And in the current political environment, ideological positions sometimes eclipse analysis. These debates occur against a backdrop of uncertainty about the health risks posed by specific environmental insults. In spite of all this ambiguity and complexity, policy happens: congress makes laws, regulatory agencies enforce the law, and most polluters comply.
In this class we will study several frameworks for thinking about these questions. Environmental economics, in the form of benefit-cost analyses, is the primary framing used by the US Federal Government. We will explore its conceptual foundations and its applications in the US regulatory context. In our discussions of the sociology of science perspective, we will examine how environmental health scientists interact with the policy process, and think through how such interactions might be improved. The third perspective is decision theory, and in particular, choice under uncertainty. We will consider the basic analytics of expected value, and some permutations and applications that are germane to the environmental health policy domain. In addition to these conceptual frameworks, we will analyze and interpret cases drawn from recent experiences with environmental health regulation in the United States.
This course is designed to introduce Mailman students to core frameworks for thinking about environmental health policy. The course is open to all students.
Science Basic to Public Health Practice (SBPHP) is a 3 credit, one semester course designed to provide students with a better understanding of the science underlying topical issues vital to public health. In past years, this class has examined scientific support (or not) for legislative and policy decisions concerning the potential human health effects related to exposure to bisphenols, UV and low-dose ionizing radiation, mercury and other heavy metals, GMO foods, alternative energy sources, or talcum (baby) powder. In addition to case studies such as these, the course provides a basic introduction to the biochemistry, cell & molecular biology, genetics and toxicology surrounding carcinogenesis, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption and damage to specific target organs and tissues. Students in this course are often drawn from a cross-section of different educational and scientific backgrounds including the Schools of Public Health, Physicians & Surgeons, Journalism, SIPA and Law. The diversity of backgrounds provide for vigorous discussions from various perspectives and enriches the student experience. In essence, this course is designed for and appropriate for any student interested in gaining a clearer basic science understanding of the biological processes underlying current public health concerns.
Through the process of developing, pitching, researching, and writing a treatment for a documentary short, students will develop an overview of the documentary process from development through distribution. The course will touch on research, story, production and post production logistics, legal, financing, budgeting, distribution, and ethical issues in the creation of documentary films.
This class, will primarily focus on the challenges of interpreting and performing Shakespeare.