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.
A study of the meanings and cultural significance of music and music theory; integration of music theory with areas outside of music, such as aesthetics, literary criticism, cognitive psychology, sociology of music, semiotics, phenomenology, theories of narrative, hierarchy theory, and linguistics.
Constitutive equations of viscoelastic and plastic bodies. Formulation and methods of solution of the boundary value, problems of viscoelasticity and plasticity.
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.
What should you expect to learn from this class?
1. Develop and refine a high-quality investment process
2. Build background and primary research skills
3. Attain greater awareness and insight into metacognition and psychology in investing
4. Understand the different ways of managing risk in investing
5. Develop and cultivate relationships with industry experts
6. Build relationships with fantastic alumni
There are many ways to make money in the markets and our goal is to provide you
with an investment process/approach that can be applied not just to public investing,
which is the focus of this class, but also to other asset classes.
Speakers: Each class will be supplemented with a guest speaker who is an expert in
their field and in the key topic of each class to further bridge theory and practice.
Speakers will include hedge fund managers, experienced investment analysts, CEOs,
industry experts, and investigative researchers.
Mentors: Each student will be provided a mentor from the industry. We encourage
you to connect with them regularly, utilize their feedback in your work, and build a longterm relationship.
The “Private Equity Lab” offers a distinctive experiential learning opportunity for students to engage directly with private equity firms on real-world projects. This course is a blend of academic instruction and hands-on experience, tailored for those looking to deepen their understanding of private equity (PE) through practical application. Partnering with PE firms identified through the Columbia Business School's (CBS) alumni network in the New York City area, this program supports students who work on specific research projects integral to the firms' current deals, portfolio management, or investment strategy. These projects are screened to be mission-crucial but not mission-critical for the firms. This ensures students will work on meaningful projects while protecting the partner firm’s performance. The course thus facilitates a connection between a student and a PE firm with a self-contained research project that could benefit from the student’s skills.
The course aims to coordinate a collection of such projects that would otherwise be organized as “Field Study Projects” in independent studies and seeks to overcome the challenge of students sourcing these opportunities and identifying faculty advisors to mentor the project. Importantly, this is not an internship arrangement, and students are not paid (thus, the hours worked are capped at the usual amount of total expected class time).
This second course of three consecutive courses focuses on using a systems and developmental approach to expand the knowledge of the advanced practice student. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive multi-modal management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan. Emphasis will be placed on the age specific biopsychosocial variables influencing those health problems and behaviors which are most likely to present, and are most amenable to management in a community setting.
This course applies financial theory to the issues and problems of asset management. In order to understand these issues, we must start with the specific goals, characteristics, and considerations of the asset owner. Asset owners may be individuals (e.g. personal wealth), collective owners (e.g. families or pension funds), charitable endowments and foundations (e.g. Columbia University), corporations, and nations (e.g. sovereign wealth funds). We characterize the properties of asset returns and the nature of various investment strategies to assess how asset management can meet the specific investment goals of asset owners. Asset owners usually delegate management of their portfolios to financial intermediaries, which may invest across a broad array of assets or specialize in a certain investment style or asset class. The delegated nature of investments necessitates understanding the principal-agent issues and market frictions associated with each type of asset class.
Risk Assessment is the process of correlating the amount of exposure (to a chemical, activity, or situation) with expected harm. This Department core course is primarily concerned with toxic substances to which humans are exposed through their environments, in the context of whether and how exposure to such toxicants should be controlled: risk assessment. Toxicological and epidemiological principles are used primarily to provide (uncertain) quantitative estimates of the harm associated with a given level of exposure: dose-response. Using a dose-response relationship necessitates quantifying exposure, an uncertain endeavor that relies on understanding human physiology and behavior. The quantitative estimates of harm from anthropogenic activity that risk assessment gives are just the starting point for the challenge of risk management: What do we do now?" The resulting decisions are influenced by both economic factors (e.g., cost-benefit analysis) and psychological factors (e.g., risk perception)."
This course is designed to be an applications oriented course and will draw heavily upon real world change of control case studies. The course builds on the prior courses in corporate finance. The course will not introduce significantly new finance principles or analytical techniques other than those to which the student has been exposed to previously in the prerequisite introductory courses in finance at Columbia. The course will seek to apply basic finance principles and analytical techniques to actual problems likely to be encountered by senior management of major corporations or those who are the advisors to such management in the context of an M&A transaction. At the conclusion of the course, the student will have gained an appreciation for the role M&A plays on today's corporate landscape and have formed an opinion as to whether or not an M&A transaction makes sense" for the firm. The student should expect at the conclusion of this course to have gained a level of competency in M&A commensurate with an entry-level investment banking associate in M&A. Whether or not the student "practices" M&A, the course will afford the student with an insider's look into what is an undeniable major force on today's corporate landscape. Accordingly, students who are interested in investment banking, consulting, equity research, corporate development, corporate lending, strategic planning, private equity, leveraged finance, or proprietary trading many wish to consider this course."
The course focuses on the set of concepts and techniques used to analyze and finance income-producing real property. It starts with the characteristics that make real property different, including cash flow uncertainties, debt sources and tax features. It then considers the available strategies and structures of real estate finance, including capital structure choices for construction and permanent financing. Extensive use is then made of cases to illustrate the range of choices and outcomes.
Real Estate Transactions is to provide you with an understanding of the institutional framework of commercial real estate transactions. It is the complement to the analytics of finance and investment. Real estate transactions draw upon a vast array of laws and regulations - property law, contract law, land-use law, environment law, securities law, constitutional law, corporate law, bankruptcy law, insurance law, and riparian law. Tax considerations similarly play a significant role in shaping transactions as real estate is highly sensitive to taxation at all levels of government and across all stages of property ownership. You should finish the course knowing how the terms and conditions spelled out in a term sheet find their way into particular sections and provisions of a deals legal documentation. To succeed in this business, you will need to be savvy consumers of legal expertise, notwithstanding the knowledge and expertise of your attorney.
This course is a quantitative companion to Molecular Epidemiology (P8307) and will discuss quantitative methods and considerations needed to conduct epidemiology research involving biomarkers. Using ‘real world’ examples, this course covers topics including data accession, storage, and sharing. It includes a comprehensive evaluation of sources of biomarker data variability and how these features are handled analytically in the conduct of molecular epidemiology research. The course covers topics including how to handle values less than the limits of detection, the identification of outliers and variability due to batch effects, freeze/thaw cycles along with sources of biologic variability including urinary dilution and lipid concentration. It also discuss methods for implementing genome-wide and epigenome-wide association studies, sample and data pooling along with considerations for returning individual and aggregate-level molecular epidemiology results to study participants, scientific and lay audiences. Class activities include quantitive demonstrations and discussions. Assessment will be based on four assignments that include responses to quantitive and qualitative prompts using R-markdown.
The course "Private Equity: Capital Formation, Innovation, and Impact" focuses on the dynamics in private equity between General Partners (GPs) and Limited Partners (LPs), especially through the private equity capital formation process, the market innovations driven by the needs of both GPs and LPs and the increasing emphasis on sustainability and impact. We start with an overview of the investor’s – limited partner’s – problem: allocating capital to private equity managers, funds and co-direct investments. The course covers the major types of limited partners, including both the traditional LPs, such as pensions, endowment, and insurers, and the fastest growing global LP segments, such as sovereign wealth funds in Asia and the Middle East, family offices, and private wealth in Europe and Asia. We will investigate how illiquidity and the absence of periodic mark-to-markets stress the traditional portfolio construction problem. The private equity industry has experienced several financial innovations that have altered the risk-return profile and impacted the set of investors able to access the asset class. We will discuss secondary transactions, evergreen structures, and co-investments. Finally, given their size and political influence, institutional investors are at the forefront of sustainability and ESG initiatives. The course will cover how private equity uniquely addresses these challenges. The course includes lectures, case discussions, and guest speakers. The topics covered in the class include:
- Capital formation: the global landscape of institutional LP capital
- Sovereign wealth funds, private wealth, and family offices
- Secondary transactions for limited partner positions and co-investments
- The role of state-backed capital
- Portfolio construction and management with private equity as a major component
- ESG and other sustainability objectives
- Evergreen funds and fund extension issues
Students interested in careers in any financial industry where they expect to interact with large institutional investors or private equity investors will benefit from this course.
Careful consideration is needed in the design and implementation of molecular epidemiologic studies that leverage biomarkers of exposure, disease susceptibility, disease etiology, prediction, and prognosis. This course aims to provide insight into major methodologies and logistic considerations when incorporating the use of biological specimens in epidemiologic research from concept to publication. For this purpose, we will utilize simulated laboratory experiences and a mock molecular epidemiology study for hands-on insight into the application of biomarkers in epidemiologic settings in conjunction with class discussions on published findings. Class activities include small group assignments where each group takes responsibility of designated tasks as part of a mock molecular epidemiology study and report back their activities for in-class discussion throughout the semester. This work will culminate in a final report at the end of the semester. In addition, 1-2 students in each session will be assigned to lead an in-class discussion that critically exams a published molecular epidemiology study. Students will also complete a virtual lab notebook that assesses material covered in the assigned virtual laboratory.
After a period of very rapid growth, in the years leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, world trade then stagnated. “Hyper-globalization” gave way to “slowbalization”. To some extent, this was inevitable. The motors of hyper-globalization – China’s integration into the world trading system, new technologies, and the reduction in barriers to trade – led to one-off rises in the level of trade but were never going to boost its growth rate permanently. More recently, however, global trade may also have been affected by a re-emergence of protectionism and rising barriers to trade. Tariffs and subsidies have risen sharply, and economists worry about the risk of fragmentation. In this course, we will seek to understand the political causes and economic effects of these trends. The course begins with some of the histories, going back to the 19th century but concentrating more on the pre-GFC “hyper-globalization.” We will look in some detail at the origins and consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU (“Brexit”). The pandemic is also examined as a quasi-experiment in cutting the supply of traded goods. The final section considers the more recent rise in trade barriers in the context of slower economic growth, rising nationalism, and strategic competition between super-powers.
Instructor: Ben Broadbent
The course "Private Equity Finance" focuses on the essential aspects of corporate finance relevant to the private equity industry. It covers topics that are critical for interviews and practice in PE investing. The course follows the "private equity cycle" of selection, valuation, and harvesting. Initially, students learn to evaluate a target company from the perspective of a private equity firm, keeping in mind the needs of investors and management. The course then delves into funding negotiations, deal structuring, and private equity investment management. Classic valuation techniques such as DCF, comparables, and APV are reviewed, along with models specific to private equity transactions (for example, the LBO model). Additionally, students will gain insight into the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern private equity finance and the ethical considerations that arise in this field. Finally, the course concludes with a study of investment exit strategies.
By the end of the course, the student will understand the language of private equity, the solutions available for valuation and deal structure, and the economic frictions that must always be addressed. This course provides a comprehensive overview of private equity finance and prepares students for careers in this exciting and dynamic industry.
This course is an applications-oriented course requiring the student to solve actual problems. After the 2023-24 academic year, this course is a pre-requisite for all 2nd year PE electives offers in the curriculum. The 2023-24 course is not available to students who have enrolled in Foundations of PE I as half of the course material has significant overlap.
In this twelve-person seminar, we will review the structure of the high yield bond and private lending markets and develop a practical approach to assess credit risk. The class will be divided into four groups of three students each. Homework assignments and presentations are to be completed collaboratively within each group. We will discuss market trends and analyze recent debt offerings. The emphasis will be placed on developing analytic skills for reviewing corporate credit (i.e., understanding the economics/cash generation capacity of a business, one’s position in a balance sheet and rights as a creditor) and assessing how the market measures and prices credit risk.
Prerequisites: Instructor-Managed Waitlist & Course Application.
Industrial policy is returning, and this is not just a US phenomenon China, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Korea have each increased subsidies in support of key industries, while a number of countries, such as Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) have been updating their national lists of sensitive sectors that are required to remain in the hands of domestic firms and individuals New export control measures have been introduced by the United States and other nations, and a combination of legal and policy tools are being utilized to support priority sectors, limit, and direct foreign investment and collaboration, and alter trade and investment flows Most of these measures have been introduced in the name of national security or some combination of national security, supply chain resilience, and climate change The significant US measures have introduced tension between the US and some of its allies, and of course, geopolitical tensions with China are a significant feature of the background to the measures—even as the world community finds it hard to get together and address the global challenges that it is now facing (climate change etc.) Against this background, this year’s international trade regulation seminar will examine the root causes of this phenomenon, the legal and policy instruments that are being utilized by the US and other jurisdictions, and more generally the consequences for the world trading system and multilateral cooperation The seminar will be composed of a mixture of SIPA and CLS students.
While intersectionality is beginning to take hold within the international aid and development industry, addressing race as a construct that has shaped the history, practice and culture of development as a whole is just emerging across much of the sector. This course will be a participatory exploration of concepts and practices of race and power in international development. We will draw on critical race, feminist, intersectionality and decolonial conceptual frameworks and tools, and examine different sites of transformation throughout the course. The ‘arc’ of the course will be from self/individual level, to exploring relevant concepts, learning frameworks for analysis and strategizing, engaging with practice and determining a course of inquiry and action in the context of a development organization or program. Students will be engaged with readings, group discussions, discussions with guest practitioners and group projects. The course will be a participatory exploration, at multiple levels - individual, interpersonal, organization and society – of how race and racism operate in international development institutions and programs. They will reflect on their own understanding of and experiences of race, power, privilege, and marginalization and reflect on how intersecting identities shape their interactions with others. Students will examine the colonial history of international development, and the ways in which neo-colonial attitudes persist in contemporary development systems, organizations, policies and practices and learn about tools and frameworks to better understand these dynamics and create change strategies to transform them.
For the poorest, the lack of a safe convenient place to save and easy and timely access to small loans translates into doing without, selling assets and making decisions that keep families locked into poverty. The focus of this class is helping the poorest begin to move out of poverty by improving how they save, borrow, and manage their money. What you learn in class and through the readings will help you to design and implement large-scale, low cost even self-replicating projects. This in contrast to the sea of ill conceived, top down, expensive, small-scale, low performing development initiatives that are all too common. This class focuses on catalyzing the capacity of local people to take the lead on solving their own problems. We will cover various strategies for assisting the poorest: Microfinance, Mobile money, Savings Groups, Ultra-Poor Graduation Programs, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and Cash Transfer programs, and Traditional savings circles in developing and developed countries. This course will provide you with the practical tools you need to design and launch effective projects in the field. This course meets for seven four-hour sessions.
To begin to develop an understanding and vocabulary in relation to theatrical design with a central emphasis on the roles of scenery and costumes in telling a dramatic story.
The class will begin with a general introduction into the issues and goals of the course, after which there will be three sessions devoted to issues of scene design and three sessions devoted to issues of costume design. Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be the focus for these discussions. Over the course of these sessions, directors will be asked to gather visual research and, in the end, arrive at a concept for their production of the play.
Directors will also be asked to visit one set and one costume class so that they can see how designers are grappling with the same principles and developing different approaches to interpreting and realizing a theatrical text for the stage.
This course is intended to provide students with an overview of the range of investing and funding approaches used by impact investors. This will be done through a combination of lectures, discussions, and presentations by leading impact investors and thought leaders. The substantive areas covered will include: (1) financial instruments and techniques used to fund social enterprises (for-profit, nonprofit and hybrids); (2) the differing financial return and social impact return expectations of impact investors; (3) how investors/funders and investment/wealth managers and advisors structure their portfolios and funds; and (4) strategies used by impact investors to search for impact investing opportunities. As well as investor/funder perspectives, the course will explore the role of financial innovation in creating opportunities to finance social enterprises, and the enabling regulatory framework and information intermediaries that are needed to support the development of robust social capital markets.
This class will focus in on how to direct opera and will cover the process of making an opera from analysing the score until the opening night. The aims are to: 1) Introduce theatre directing students to the practical differences between theatre and opera directing; 2) Equip them with practical skills and knowledge so that they could walk into any opera rehearsal room (either as an assistant or a director) and know exactly what to expect and how to manage the process; 3) Offer them techniques to strengthen their skill of interpretation or concept by guiding them to focus in on one specific opera case study; and 4) Introduce them to specialist professional practitioners, like conductors, singers and set designers, to allow them to understand the art form through the lens of the collaborators the opera director works with.
This course will teach students how to construct investment portfolios for various asset allocation purposes (family offices, endowments, foundations, etc.). The course will teach the history and evolution of the asset allocation industry and its varying schools of thought. The professors will draw on their own insights and frameworks developed at East Rock Capital and several industry practitioner guest speakers. Students will learn how to identify high-conviction investment opportunities in established and emerging managers and direct investment opportunities and how to construct diversified portfolios focused on long-term wealth creation rather than short-term performance. By the end of the class the students will have a strong foundation to start their careers in asset allocation.
The course will focus on identifying specialized managers. Students will analyze case studies of both direct and indirect investments and learn strategies for conducting thorough due diligence. A significant component of the course will involve portfolio construction techniques. Students will learn how to categorize holdings into appropriate buckets (e.g., "Generational Assets," "Liquid Assets," and "Family-Directed Assets") to balance risk, return, and investment goals.
The objective is to equip students with practical frameworks for sophisticated wealth management tailored to multi-generational family investors.
The course will meet weekly, and preparation for each class is critical. We will have several outside speakers to research each week and weekly reading assignments based on that week’s module. The final exam will be a semester-long project to put everything we have learned all semester to work.
This course is most relevant for students interested in asset allocation, wealth management, running a family office, and investing. It is an application-based course that is not open to the bidding process.
Climate change may be today’s most serious challenge to the future of humanity. Scientists have concluded that avoiding catastrophic climate change will require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 or shortly thereafter, a dramatic reversal after several hundred years of industrial growth. This will require a rapid transformation of the global economy, requiring trillions of dollars in capital and creating new and risks and opportunities for investors to finance the transition. This course builds on the lessons learned in B8705 Business and Climate Change. The course begins with an introduction to climate finance and the topic of carbon markets, followed by classes on project finance to finance renewable energy, venture and growth capital to finance emerging climate technologies, and public equity strategies including divestment and ESG investing. Financial products in the fixed income and insurance markets are examined for climate impact, followed by a class session on development finance to understand the unique challenges and solutions to investing in climate solutions in emerging markets. The course wraps-up with a class session on the strategies used by banks and investment firms for the transition to net zero, concluding with a discussion of the impact of the climate crisis on opportunities and careers in finance.
The course’s objective is to present a rational investment philosophy and process for equity security analysis and capital allocation. The course has three sections:
(1) Investment Philosophy and Capital Markets
What is the objective of security analysis and investing?
Why does a value-based methodology win over time?
Does Modern Portfolio Theory explain empirical evidence?
What is more instructive for investment analysis – determining value or expected return?
What is the difference between “cheap” and “mis-priced”?
(2) Investment Process – Valuation and Competitive Strategy
What is the difference between a great business, a good business and a bad business?
How can we evaluate when a business and/or an industry’s mid-long term economics change?
How can we evaluate company specific structural mis-pricings that exist?
How can we categorize investment opportunities to improve how we value and define them?
How can we define a process to source mis-pricings into investment categories?
What are the commonly used valuation methodologies and which are most instructive for certain situations?
What is the most effective framework for modeling a business and what are the pitfalls?
How can we evaluate management’s history of capital allocation? How important is it and how do we factor this into valuation?
(3) Capital Allocation and Global Macro
What top-down inputs are instructive for a security analyst?
What lessons have we learned from previous bubbles?
Can computing and evaluating asset class expected returns help source where a security analyst might find mis-pricings and compounding opportunities?
How do we evaluate secular headwinds or tailwinds for industries and businesses?
What are the pitfalls of consensus thinking and is there a benefit to seeking the edge of the crowd?
What are the key economic data points that truly inform the analyst where we are in certain cycles?
The curriculum will seek to answer these questions by first reviewing investing principals and concepts. Thereafter we will bring in company executives and investment practitioners to provide real world evidence of these principles in action and allow for students to participate in a
thoughtful, factual dialogue.
“Can we wonder that we find it hard to decide whether the grotesques are meant as jokes or as monsters?” asked Ernst Gombrich of Leonardo’s drawings. The question underscores the polysemy of the term grotesque, which is now used to denote the many forms and representations of ridiculous ugliness, ranging from physical and physiognomic deformation to Mikhail Bakthin's aesthetic principle of the "corporeal and material low". In the Renaissance, the grotesque was still closely linked to its recent etymology, which referred to the fanciful, extravagant decorations that defied the laws of nature and were discovered in the “grottoes” of Nero's Domus Aurea towards the end of the fifteenth century. The seminar will explore the comic and creative principles of these different categories of the grotesque in the early modern period and investigate how they contributed to the official birth of caricature with the Carracci. Students will be responsible for the summary and introduction of the seminar’s weekly readings for discussion. They will have the opportunity to explore New York’s drawings and prints collections and to participate in the conception of a small ephemeral exhibition.
This seminar will examine some of the distinctive questions that emerge around sculpture as a medium in the period from ca. 1400-1700. Discussions will focus on the conception of individual objects, on relevant art theory from the period, and on major contributions to the modern literature. Although much of the course material will be Italian, participants are welcome to pursue research projects on any connected tradition.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has emerged as an essential tool for public health researchers and practitioners. The GIS for Public Health course will offer students an opportunity to gain skills in using GIS software to apply spatial analysis techniques to public health research questions. The laboratory section of the course will give students the opportunity for hands-on learning in how to use GIS systems to analyze data and produce maps and reports. These laboratory exercises will be designed to increasingly challenge the students to incorporate the analytic skills and techniques they have learned in other courses with the geospatial and spatial statistics techniques commonly used in GIS. Guest speakers will be invited to share their real-world examples of GIS in Public Health research and practice. These speakers will include Columbia researchers and staff from government agencies or non-profit organizations.
This course combines the methods and teachings of security analysis with practical buy-side methodologies to identify and research attractive value investments. Emphasis will be placed on the development and implementation of a sound and repeatable research process. Both long and short methodologies will be covered during the semester.
This course will leverage your theoretical learning in security analysis plus require you to develop business acumen and industry expertise. A combination of fundamental analysis and assessment of intrinsic value will be balanced with thematic thinking and business judgment. The course should arm you with the tools to identify attractive value investments through a variety of methodologies for several alternative fund strategies. Throughout the semester, students will prepare five full investment memoranda on assigned stock securities. After the first name, which will be assigned to the entire class, subsequent stocks will be assigned to small groups of students. Certain students will be required to develop the long thesis while others develop the short thesis. Ultimately each student will select one of their ideas to further develop (long or short) for a final presentation to the class and outside fund managers. The class will be kept small to take advantage of the instructional method. Class discussions will be complemented by guest discussions from highly regarded investment professionals from the long only and hedge fund community.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This will be a demanding class meant for the student intent on entering the investment management industry post-graduation. As such, only students who demonstrate a compelling interest in professional investment management will be admitted, and admission will be limited to 10 students to ensure quality of experience for all involved. This seminar is not open to the bidding process and no auditors will be allowed. The purpose of this section of Advanced Investment Research is to help students learn how to rip apart" a company and draw thoughtful conclusions about whether it might make for a good investment opportunity. Topics will include stock selection, identifying the key investment factors, developing a variant view, and networking with industry contacts to help confirm or refute one's thesis. The class will culminate with students delivering a detailed research recommendation on a single investment idea to a panel of judges. The goal is for students to leave class with an actionable investment idea and a framework for how to develop and research ideas in the future.
This class will be demanding and potentially overwhelming if you are not prepared to dedicate significant time and energy to it. Students should expect 20-25 hours of work per week outside of class, and the work load may be higher if you have not previously done detailed fundamental investment research. We recommend that you do not take this class if you are unable to put in this amount of time because you will not be able to keep up, and you will not be happy with your final grade.
Note: this class will also include a substantial pre-class assignment which will be a material part of the final grade.
Please note that this course was open to Value Investing applicants only, and is not biddable. The roster has been set, and the course is now closed. This course will help students learn the process of performing investment case studies. Investors use case studies to build a library of mental models and real-world analogies to facilitate pattern recognition in order to make superior investment decisions, refine search filters, identify key investment factors, assess how investments are likely to play out, develop and monetize their circle of competence, and to understand the life cycle of investments and where we stand today in that cycle. This class is complementary to the Value Investing Program.
The course is designed for individuals who wish to learn more about the investment strategies employed by hedge funds. Students range from those considering a career switch out of a very broad range of activities to this style of asset management to those who are interested in affiliated activities, from marketing hedge funds to selling to them. The course is outlined in more detail in the attached syllabus, or in the brief video.
This class will focus on an increasingly important (yet academically underdeveloped) area of intersection in law and finance: Legal-Financial Arbitrage (LFA). This field is a subset of financial arbitrage, a well-known practice of spotting hard-to-justify price differences among two (or more) identical (or highly correlated) investments and then capitalizing on those differences in a riskless (or nearly riskless) way. LFA is a subset of financial arbitrage, but LFA focuses on pricing differences occasioned by legal/regulatory uncertainties or anomalies (e.g., contract interpretation and enforceability, regulatory status and enforcement, etc.), capitalizing on those differences using the tools of arbitrage trading.
LFA is a true cross-profession enterprise. Although financial arbitrage is nothing new in financial markets, and assessing legal risks is the stock-in-trade for attorneys, the two skill sets have started to intersect meaningfully in LFA, as so-called “strategic situation” and “merger arbitrage” traders have increasingly focused their attention on legal matters that may not be fully appreciated by other market participants, either because they are less attentive to legal and regulatory situations or because the trade rests on unique judgments about how legal matters will unfold.
The most commonly employed LFA trading strategies concern announced M&A transactions (which provide a natural setting where the value of an M&A target’s stock should home in on a known value at a future time if a deal closes). We will focus much of our attention on M&A transactions. But like LFA trading generally, we will not be so limited. LFA opportunities exist in many other law-relevant domains, such as corporate governance and board control fights, bankruptcies, commercial/IP litigation, and mass tort claims. What will link all the situations we study, however, is the central importance of combining sound legal assessments to generate (probabilistic) forecasts of the outcomes of these situations, to assess how these outcomes will affect prices of the firms’ traded securities. We will discuss how biased beliefs and the risks faced by market participants can lead to investment opportunities. Finally, we will discuss the implementation of optimal arbitrage positions. Accordingly, we hope to facilitate dialogues and innovative idea generation
between
JD and MBA students (working in teams).
The purpose of this course is to provide practical experience in analyzing epidemiologic data. The goal is to familiarize you with various analytic methods and their uses to answer specific epidemiologic research questions. Brief reviews of relevant statistical methods, their applications in epidemiologic research and interpretation of results will be covered step by step in this course. You will be provided with several data sets from epidemiologic (case-control and cohort) studies and will be asked to conduct analyses of these data.
TBD
There’s an old Wall Street adage: “Don’t short valuation.” So, is everything else fair game? What about frauds, are those sure things? The purpose of this class is to answer these questions and equip students to profitably employ short-selling investment strategies. We will introduce students to all aspects of short-selling. However, we will assume that students have prior knowledge of the basics mechanics of shorting a stock, as well as various accounting tricks and “shenanigans” that companies employ to mask weaknesses in their business. To that end, we will provide some materials that should be reviewed before the start of class to review these concepts.
In class, we will first dig into the academic literature behind short selling. We will discuss what has worked historically, and whether or not it has been successful as of late. We will then read and discuss case studies on “famous” shorts and frauds. We will, with the benefit of hindsight, try to identify inflection points in the arc of each company. The students will also become familiar with the risks of shorting frauds too early. We will examine various short selling strategies, including “activist shorting”, that are currently being employed in the markets. We will evaluate what elements make for a compelling short “pitch.” Additionally, students will learn about idea sourcing, portfolio management, risk management, and compliance.
While the title and focus of the class is “Short Selling,” it is important to note that the techniques and investment approaches we will discuss are highly applicable to long-focused investing as well. Deciding not to own a security that is included in a tracking index is functionally the same as shorting the security, and understanding a company’s true profitability (and not the version that it promotes through its accounting decisions) is highly important for valuation efforts. A deep and skeptical research approach should assist fundamental analysts in all fields. We will approach this topic from both theoretical and practical perspectives, drawing heavily on the academic literature around short selling as well as highly-experienced practitioners. We will examine what makes a profitable short, and pay particular attention to unsuccessful shorts and
how to avoid them. The mosaic of analysis will include accounting, market microstructure, fundamental factors, behavioral finance, value-added research, and various v
How do scientific and technical experts do their work and produce the results that they do? The purpose of this course is to read and critically evaluate the canonical works in the sociology of science, knowledge, and technology and to initiate a research project. The research paper for this course can be tailored to meet the student's long term research or professional interests. The readings are organized chronologically to introduce major works and their authors, present an overview of the development of the field, the diversity of perspectives, turning points, and controversies.
This course analyzes the museum as a historical institution and its evolving role. Beginning with the founding of the “modern” (i.e. public) art museum in 17th and 18th century Europe, it traces the expansion of “encyclopedic” museum from Europe to North America, its Enlightenment roots and role in Empire building; the rise of progressive reform movements in early 20th century; the influence of modernist aesthetics, as well as political movements––from Black power to Indigenous self-determination––that led to the creation of alternative institutions. The rise of globalization and recent calls for decolonization are examined as challenges to museums of the Global North, and relations with Global South. Addressing the museum as discourse, issues such as nationalism, colonialism, restitution, cultural heritage, capitalism, and digitization will figure in readings and discussion.
Applications from Ph.D./M.A. students in Art history, including in the Consortium and related CU programs are encouraged; background in art history required.
This is a semester-long course that addresses issues in adult psychiatric epidemiology. The course begins with a review of the origins of psychiatric epidemiology in several classic studies. It also describes major recent studies, presents evidence concerning the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis in community studies and summarizes evidence derived from epidemiological studies that is relevant to issues of etiology. The course also covers selection into treatment, treatment effectiveness, the distribution of treatment, and social factors affecting course and role functioning.
In all societies, public policies are developed to solve social problems such as extreme poverty, inequality, basic sanitation, health and basic care, family planning, food security, mental health, abuse of illegal substances, education, and protection of vulnerable groups. How can we ensure that these public policies are based on solid evidence, which would guarantee the greatest probability of effectiveness? And how do we plan and adapt the implementation of these policies to different realities, respecting cultural and historical differences?
In order to achieve this, it is useful, if not necessary, to be acquainted with scientific thinking and the accumulation and use of evidence. It is also necessary to understand our own limitations and cognitive biases that interfere in the decision-making process. This course aims to provide students with the tools necessary to assess public policies critically and rationally, as well as to evaluate different types of scientific evidence and understand how and where it is appropriate to include scientific evidence in building effective public policy.
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Methods used in cancer epidemiology are critically examined through weekly assigned readings, lectures and class discussion. Topics covered in this course include molecular and cellular biology of cancer, basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and the roles of chemical, viral, hormonal, genetic and nutritional factors in human cancer. The natural history of cancer analysis of time trends in cancer incidence, mortality, survival and geographic distribution are also examined. Screening and treatment issues will be discussed.
Spatial epidemiology is the study of geographic distributions and determinants of health in populations. The goal of this class is to introduce students to relevant theory and methods, in order to provide the foundational skills required to understand and critically analyze spatial epidemiologic studies. The course emphasizes spatial epidemiology as a sub-discipline of epidemiology while acknowledging the many scientific disciplines that shape it, including biostatistics, cartography, criminology, demography, economics, geography, psychology, and sociology. We begin by defining spatial epidemiology and exploring these multi-disciplinary roots, with particular regard to the theoretical causal mechanisms that provide a bridge between social and physical environmental conditions and population health. We then provide a basic overview of geographic information systems and their utility for descriptive spatial epidemiology—including data visualization and cluster detection—before demonstrating how to incorporate spatial structures within conventional epidemiologic study designs to examine associational and causational relationships between environmental conditions and health outcomes. Class readings describe advances in theory and methods for spatial epidemiology and related disciplines, as well as concrete examples of applications for communicable disease, non-communicable disease, and injury epidemiology. This course is intended for doctoral and 2ndyear MPH students.
Leveraged Buyout. The term itself has a mystique to many people, but at its core it refers to buying a company (a “buyout”) using leverage (i.e., debt), usually a lot of it. While many types of business owners can utilize borrowings to fund an acquisition, the term is synonymous with private equity firms buying companies using significant amounts of borrowed capital. Leveraged buyouts date back to the 1960s, when the predecessors of the original private equity firms were bootstrapping deals together. While much has changed in the intervening decades—including the development and maturation of the private equity industry—some things have not, including leverage's importance in any buyout. Without one or more lenders or other credit providers, there cannot be a leveraged buyout; therefore, lenders and credit investors are important stakeholders in closing every private equity buyout. In addition, the leverage places certain constraints on the borrower, so the lender or credit provider is a key stakeholder in the ultimate success of the private equity firm’s investment.
By its nature, the financing of leveraged transactions is significantly different from that of large-cap publicly traded or Fortune 500 companies, which often have access to low-cost commercial paper, the investment-grade bond market, global banks, and numerous other parts of the capital markets. While those companies may borrow tens of billions of dollars from banks and other sources, those companies’ debt is typically considered relatively low risk (perhaps having a low debt-to-cap ratio or denoted as “investment grade”). Today, leverage in buyouts is often 40%, 50%, or even 60%+ of the company’s total capitalization. Underwriting for these deals in significantly different than traditional underwriting.
This course will cover the topic of leverage used in private equity buyouts
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: why leverage is important, various commonly deployed forms of leverage, and trends in the overall marketplace (including the rapid growth of private credit, especially in the middle market). This course will provide:
an understanding of the various forms of leverage commonly deployed by private equity firms (and other business owners) in transactions, including borrowings from banks and private credit firms and through the issuance of high-yield bonds
the experience of acti
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
Tech Arts: Advanced Post Production covers advanced techniques for picture and sound editing and the post production workflow process. The goal of the course is to give you the capabilities to excel in the field of post production. We will focus extra attention to concepts and workflows related to long-form projects that can contain a team of technical artists across the post production pipeline. We will cover preparing for a long-form edit, digital script integration, color management and continuity, advanced trimming, and advanced finishing. The hands-on lessons and exercises will be conducted using the industry-standard Non-Linear Editing Systems, Avid Media Composer, and Davinci Resolve.
Each week’s class will consist of hands-on demonstrations and self-paced practice using content created by the students and provided by the program.
This course, intended for non-clinicians with an interest in psychiatric epidemiology, is designed to familiarize students with the major psychiatric clinical entities and relevant issues concerning diagnosis, based in part on the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. In this course, we will cover the phenomenology of mental illness by way of contemporary psychiatric theory and practice and give students heavy exposure to the process of psychiatric assessment. The course will start by introducing students to how to build a disorder from symptom bricks as well as giving students an in-depth review of clinical psychiatric evaluations. This foundation will ultimately be used through the duration of the semester as we discuss many of the major categories of mental disorders in the following weeks.
See CLS curriculum guide for description
The primary objectives in this course are to gain knowledge about and to critically engage with current topics in the field of injury control and prevention, to develop research and scientific inquiry skills, and to make meaningful connections with experts in this field. In this course, we will learn from experts on four topics in the field of injury control and prevention. By the end of the semester, students will have improved their ability to interpret peer-reviewed research on current topics in injury control and prevention and will be prepared to go forward asking important scientific questions in this field, with a solid sense of what is already known and what is worthy of further inquiry and investigation. Readings will be determined by the four guest speakers based on what is relevant to their field of research.
The course is designed to introduce business students to the application of value investing concepts and disciplines to digital businesses. We will cover a wide range of digital business models in companies at a variety of stages and development.The course is organized around major digital business models and industry verticals. After the introductory sessions, each week will closely examine a leading digital company (or companies) within the model/vertical at issue, as well as an alternative established or emerging digital competitors. The analytical framework will be reflected in an Investment Committee Memorandum template that will serve as a basis for class discussion. The template incorporates the key decision-making variables relevant to a value investing approach. The first half of each class will focus on the overall sector identified and leading company example.The second half will include Investment Committee Memo presentations by two student groups on the alternative digital business examined. Some sessions will include participation of relevant leading digital investors or executives. In addition to weekly readings, the two textbooks for the class are: Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (VI) by Bruce Greenwald et al. and The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies (COM) by Jonathan Knee et al. The reading assignments for class combine chapters of the book with relevant background materials on the general sector and specific companies studied. Grading is based on:Final examination (65%) Group presentations (25%) Class participation (10%)"
Public health surveillance is the fundamental mechanism that public health agencies use to monitor the health of the communities they serve. It is a core function of public health practice, and its purpose is to provide a factual basis from which agencies can appropriately set priorities, plan programs, and take actions to promote and protect the public's health. This course will cover the principles of public health surveillance, including historical context, vital registration, disease reporting regulations and notifiable diseases, surveillance registries, surveillance for behaviors and risk factors, administrative data sources in surveillance, epidemiologic uses of surveillance data, legal and ethical issues, and dissemination of surveillance information.
The course is very experiential. Learnings will be applied to companies that are currently fundraising and you will assess each company as if you were considering investing. There will be 2-3 guest lecturers (in addition to the startup pitches) from experts in the ecosystem so students get a varied perspective. Real company info will be shared in this class. As a result, class slides will be handed out in class but not shared electronically and class sessions will not be recorded.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
You might have heard that value, quant value to be specific, has not performed well over the last decade. Consider the Figure below. It shows the returns associated with investing $1 in four quant strategies, big value, big growth, small value and small growth. The facts are straightforward. Big growth has outperformed big value, but the value premium is alive and well amongst small stocks. In general, when one looks at value versus growth, growth has outperformed greatly. Does this mean value investing is dead? Absolutely not. Journalists and observers confuse quant value with value investing Modern value is about value investing: The process by which we estimate the fundamental value of the business operations of the firm in the context of the competitive position the company has in the industry and markets in which it operates. Notice that I wrote process. Value investing is indeed structured and systematic, and it needs to be because it is granular, focused on the specifics of the firm under consideration. Thus, it is easy to get lost in the details of the firm. The process helps you assess the importance of each bit of information and integrate them coherently in the analysis that combines tools from accounting, valuation and the economics of strategic behavior. around the appropriate aspects of the business?
This intensive course offers an introduction to multiple disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to the major issues defining the emergence, persistence, and transformation of the countries that once comprised the Soviet bloc. The course explores the history, politics, economies, societies, and political cultures of Russia, the non-Russian republics of the former USSR, and East Central Europe, focusing on the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical developments employed by Soviet studies in North America and related disciplines. It also critically interrogates the enduring relevance and problems posed by the widespread use of the term “Soviet legacy” in reference to contemporary features and challenges faced by the region.
The intensive nature of this course is reflected in two ways- preparation and focus. First, the course carries a substantial reading load designed to inform and prepare students for the course sessions. These assignments will mostly be academic readings, but may also include short videos, news articles, and digital archival materials. In order to use our time together productively, the lectures and discussion will build upon, not review, the assignments for the session. Each session typically will be split into 2 segments, roughly of 55-60 minutes each. Many of these segments will be taught by guest lecturers who will give 30 mins presentations on their topic and then field questions. During our limited time for Q&A students should ask single, concise questions.
Clinical epidemiology is a basic science of clinical medicine and a subspecialty of epidemiology. It is the application of epidemiologic methods to studying problems encountered in clinical settings pertaining to the causes and management of diseases and medical conditions in individual patients. The central paradigm of clinical epidemiology is that exposure and outcome patterns of the disease in different population groups can be analyzed methodically to gain scientific knowledge about the etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, safety, and effectiveness of therapeutic and other interventions. Epidemiologic methods are increasingly used in clinical investigations to provide scientific evidence for assessing clinical practice and for improving clinical decision making and outcomes. This course is designed to introduce students to basic theories, concepts, and methods of clinical epidemiology, and provide them with the necessary tools and skills to critically appraise the clinical research literature, competently design and conduct clinical studies, and appropriately analyze and interpret clinical data. This course consists of one lecture and one laboratory session per week. Students will be evaluated based on a mid-term exam, final exam, and homework assignments.
This course provides the graduate midwifery student with theoretical knowledge of complex conditions that may arise during the antepartum period. Maintaining a person-centered approach to care is emphasized within the context of health equity.
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: https://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
This half session "B" course is focused primarily on the commercial real estate debt markets and is complimented by the half session "A" course, Real Estate Equity Markets. Students may wish to take both half courses sequentially for a complete understanding of the Real Estate Capital Markets or individually. The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a comprehensive understanding of both theory and practice in the commercial real estate debt markets both from the perspective of capital providers as well as property investors. The approach will be to make sure students first have a thorough grasp of the relevant theories and models used to value these assets and then to apply that understanding to reality seeing the limitations of the theory. Students will learn how to underwrite, size, and analyze a variety of commercial real estate debt including balance sheet first mortgage loans, first mortgage loans for securitization and CMBS, and subordinate debt structures including mezzanine loans, B- notes and preferred equity. The course will also teach the student how to analyze the $800 billion CMBS market, the largest commercial real estate debt market and the associated CRE CDO, CRE CLO and CMBX markets both from a theoretical and practical perspective. These markets finance about one quarter of all commercial real estate debt. They were also at the heart of the recent commercial real estate bubble, collapse and rebirth. Some time will also be devoted to agency "CMBS (multifamily)" markets including FNMA DUS MBS, FHLMC K certificates and Ginnie Mae Project and construction loan certificates. As a final project, students will be grouped into teams and given commercial real estate securities to analyze on a Bloomberg to make investment decisions. All students who would like to understand these critical markets and their connection to the commercial property markets are welcome. The course would be particularly appropriate for students wishing to pursue careers in real estate finance and/or trading, creating, investing in, researching, selling or regulating commercial real estate securities. The course is also recommended for students wishing to pursue careers as developers or investors in commercial real estate properties themselves (" the dirt") but want to understand how to fund their ventures via these instruments and how volatility in the real estate debt capital markets for these instruments can create opportunities and risks in the property markets themselves.
Important Scheduling Notes: The first class (9/7/21) conflicts with Rosh Hashana and will be moved to either Thurs 9/9/21 or Fri 9/10/21 from 1:00 - 4:15 pm. The final class (10/12/21) will be held on Friday 10/15/21.
FINCB8457
This diagnosis and management course identifies complex sexual and reproductive health issues within the scope of nurse midwifery practice. Emphasis will be on the nurse midwifery role in the management of complex cases which includes collaborative care and referrals. Concurrent supervised clinical experiences enhance and ground the didactic experience. Social and reproductive justice issues and health outcome measures with respect to disparities will be integrated throughout.
This course provides foundational knowledge and skills for midwifery management and support of physiologic labor and birth. Hands-on workshops with task trainers and simulation will be utilized to provide instruction and feedback on practical skills necessary for assessment and management of the laboring and birthing person.
This course will introduce fundamental concepts and a high-level overview of the burgeoning blockchain and cryptocurrency space. The course will begin by providing a background in fundamental concepts in Computer Science such as in cryptography, distributed systems, and data structures. It will then move on to an in-depth overview of blockchain, the history of Bitcoin and the proliferation of new consensus models, ICOs, smart contracts, and more. Industry guest speakers will share their perspectives.
The course’s objective is to teach the student how to develop, value, finance, and invest in residential real estate and residential real estate debt securities and derivatives as well as to understand how the US residential financing system works. Given its’ broad and deep sweep, students will learn about a wide range of topics ranging from the importance of fits and finishes in selling homes in a new subdivision, to how to entitle land, to how blockchain is being used to disrupt the mortgage origination process, to how to create an Agency residential CMO companion bond and a lot more. A range of housing types will be covered including: single family subdivisions, market rate urban condominiums, low and moderate income housing, workforce and student housing, manufactured housing, and senior residential living
communities, and rental apartments. At the end of the course we will also focus on racism and real estate.
The course is recommended for Columbia Business School MBA, EMBA, PhD and MSc financial engineering students who
wish to understand these markets better or who want to pursue careers or side businesses in developing and/or buying
residential types of real estate, and/or who wish to trade, sell, research, or institutionally invest in residential real estate
securities and derivatives. Cross registrants from SIPA, the School of Engineering, Law and Journalism schools who want
to better understand how housing development and the US housing finance system works are also welcome.
This clinical course covers the broad scope of sexual, reproductive health and prenatal care including: the history and physical examination techniques aimed at understanding the physiologic parameters of sexual health and pregnancy and recognizing complex conditions, illness or risk for complication. This course focuses on the physical, emotional and educational needs of the person seeking midwifery care and covers a variety of clinical areas including health maintenance, screening, sexual health, family planning, preconception, pregnancy and late postpartum care.
The course is directed towards students who are involved with the management of family businesses, either their own family's or someone else's, as well as towards students who interact with family businesses. The focus of this course is primarily on financing decisions faced by
privately held family businesses. We will explore the family, business, and ownership issues found in family owned and managed companies to get a better understanding of how financial decisions are influenced.
Through lectures, case studies, student work experiences and guest speakers, we consider questions of control, growth, liquidity, and the evolving role of governance and the family office in the financing decisions of the family owned enterprise.
The course has the following objectives:
• Develop a system framework to analyze factors influencing family business financial decisions.
• Increase your understanding, effectiveness and commitment as a member of a family firm (either you own family’s or someone else’s) or as an advisor to such firms
• Identify the characteristics that differentiate a family business from other businesses
• Examine the life cycles of family businesses from the perspective of business, family and ownership
• Learn to identify and evaluate situations and problems in family businesses
• Examine best practices and explore emerging trends in family business management
• Develop family business competitive strategies
This applied course introduces students to the epidemiology of HIV infection in resource-rich and resource-limited settings. Class sessions focus on the latest approaches to conducting surveillance of HIV and AIDS; the evolving burden of HIV infection in sub-groups, including men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, adolescent girls and older people; the development and evaluation of prevention- and treatment-related interventions across a range of settings; and the application of epidemiologic methods to understand historical and current controversies and determine best practices. Activate participation in class discussion and exercises, homework, a group presentation and a final project will be used to evaluate student progress towards learning objectives.
You cant disrupt any industry without dislodging its incumbents. And no incumbent goes down without a fight. Sometimes those fights happen in court. But usually, they take place in the halls of government: in city councils, state legislatures, municipal regulatory agencies, even local community boards. For 90% of technology startups, not understanding how to anticipate, handle and solve your coming regulatory problems is just as problematic as not being able to hire engineers or raise venture funding. Failure to anticipate politics can be fatal. However, there is a playbook for startups to disrupt and thrive. This class is designed to teach its students exactly how. Working in groups, students pilot new industries through the regulatory process, navigating the halls of power and the economics of disruption by analyzing the regulatory and political obstacles in their way. Students will figure out how to properly assess their opponents, develop and execute the right narrative in the media, build a grassroots movement, effectively lobby elected officials, regulators and political staffers, overcome entrenched interests standing in their way, and ideally, not only win legality for their idea, but build a regulatory moat to box out potential competitors.
Malaria imposes a profound burden on public health and inhibits economic growth. It is distributed over 90 countries accounting for an annual estimate of 400 million cases and over one million deaths, most of them in children. Pregnant women are more vulnerable to malaria, resulting in infection, miscarriages, severe anemia, maternal mortality and low birth weight. Low birth weight poses the greatest risk for neonatal death. The disease also affects non-immune immigrants, refugees and displaced populations during their movement from non-endemic to endemic areas. Resistance to anti-malarial drugs and insecticides by the Plasmodium human parasites and Anopheles vector mosquitoes respectively is widespread. This course examines the ecological and epidemiological characteristics of malaria, transmission dynamics, economic costs of malaria, available intervention strategies and the global challenge of its control.
This course focuses on the branch of epidemiology concerned with how social arrangements, processes, and interactions shape the population distribution of health and disease and produce social inequalities in health. The sub-discipline of social epidemiology has grown dramatically in the past decade and, while still evolving as an interdisciplinary enterprise, it is now an established field of etiologic inquiry, both incorporating and influencing the conventional theories, methods, and principles of epidemiology. This course will familiarize students with the key theories, concepts, methods, findings, and ongoing debates in social epidemiology. Through lectures, readings, and discussion we will review the major social determinants of health, the theories and empirical evidence with respect to how social conditions “get under the skin,” and the methodological challenges involved in measuring social phenomena and making causal inferences about the relationship between social factors and health. By the end of the course students will understand the theoretical, substantive, and methodological parameters of this growing sub-discipline of epidemiologic inquiry, and be able to evaluate both its strengths and limitations.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. A graduate seminar designed to explore the content, process, and problems of China's political and economic reforms in comparative perspective. Please see the Courseworks site for details
The outstanding notional amount of debt instruments in the world is well over $100 trillion which makes it larger than the global equity markets. Credit, is actually what makes the world go around yet it gets much less billing and excitement than other asset classes. If you think credit is just fixed income, I have a few hedge fund managers you should meet Some of them will be our occasional guest speakers!
In recent years, a number of infections have appeared for the first time, while many others have spread rapidly to new areas; these are termed emerging infectious diseases". HIV/AIDS, SARS, the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), human infections with H5N1 and H7N9 avian influenza, and a number of others are recent examples. Infectious causes have also been implicated in such chronic diseases as gastric ulcers and certain cancers. This course examines the concept of emerging infectious diseases and our current understanding of emergence. The course will consider methods for identifying and studying emerging pathogens, factors responsible for disease emergence, and methods for surveillance and intervention.
The primary objectives in this course are to learn to systematically review and summarize primary research in chronic disease epidemiology, to synthesize scientific evidence to establish causal inference, and to understand how this evidence relates to scientific decision making for improving health outcomes. In this course, we will evaluate 4 topics in the epidemiology of chronic diseases. By the end of the semester, students will improve their ability to interpret the literature on current topics in chronic disease epidemiology and will be able to evaluate how the evidence can inform health decision making and causal inference. Readings will be based upon publications highlighted in the Dean’s Seminar Series on Chronic Disease and the Department of Epidemiology’s Chronic Disease Cluster seminars.