NONFICTION THESIS WORKSHOP
- Department: Writing
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Instructor:
Leslie S Jamison
Wikipedia Info -
Instructor:
Wendy Walters
Info - 9 points
SAS Insights for CEOR
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
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Instructor:
Yongmei Huang
h-index: 22 Info - 1.5 points
Critical Read of Biological Clinical Lit
Crit Read of Bio Clin Lit
Fall: Review of current literature providing complementary information pertinent to other nutrition areas, with a view to developing a critical approach to the assimilation of scientific information. Spring: Obesity: Etiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Controversies involving regulation of weight and energy balance. Interaction between genetics and the environment are considered as well as clinical implications of our current knowledge.
- Department: Human Nutrition, Institute of
- 3 points
NEW DIRECTION IN ECON SOCIOLOGY
NEW DIRECTIONS IN ECONOMIC SOC
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.
- Department: Sociology
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Instructor:
David Stark
CULPA: 15
Wikipedia
h-index: 48
Info
- 3 points
Theoretical Statistics
STAT ANALYSIS-NEURAL DATA
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- Department: Statistics
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Instructor:
Liam M Paninski
CULPA: 4 Info - 3 points
Behavioral Policy & Public Health
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
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Instructor:
Kai Ruggeri
h-index: 22 Info - 1.5 points
BIOCHEM-PHYSIOL BASIS-NUTR I
BIOCHEM-PHYSCL BASIS NUTRITION
Aspects of carbohydrate, lipid, protein, and energy metabolism relevant to the understanding of nutrition at cellular and organism levels. Biochemical and physiological aspects of vitamin and mineral metabolismand action during both normal conditions and deficiency toxicity states.
- Department: Human Nutrition, Institute of
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Instructor:
Bryan Gonzalez
Info - 3 points
COLLOQ ON POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
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.
- Department: Political Science
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Instructor:
Robert Y Shapiro
CULPA: 4
Wikipedia
Info
- 4 points
Global Macroeconomic Investing
This course builds on the core Global Economic Environment curriculum to equip students with toolkits for applying open-economy macro frameworks to the analysis of the fundamental forces shaping economic turning points and the development of public-market trading strategies around them.
Key concepts in global macro investing are delivered through a mix of interactive lectures, case-study discussions, and directed conversations with practitioners. The course is structured in three sections: (1) a review and extension of core macroeconomic principles, an annotated discussion of key macroeconomic indicators, a structured look at the principal features of major risk assets (i.e., equities, currencies, fixed income, and commodities), and the development of templates for global macro trading strategies and risk management; (2) case studies around recent, disruptive major global macro inflection points; and (3) the application of the course’s key learning objectives to the development of broad global macro trading strategies around prevailing macroeconomic conditions, special cases, and instances of asset mispricing.
This course will provide introductory knowledge and skills for students wishing to pursue activities in markets-focused macroeconomic research and strategy, global tactical asset allocation, the application of macroeconomic overlays on a wide range of investment platforms, strategic planning, and policy development.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Brett House
Info - 1.5 points
Law & Policy: Mass Incarceration in the
LAW & POLICY: MASS INCAR
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
- Department: Health Policy & Management
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Instructor:
Hernandez Stroud
Wikipedia Info - 1.5 points
Case Competition Fundamentals
CASE COMPETITION FUNDAMEN
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
- 1.5 points
ECONOMICS OF STRATEGIC BEHAVIOR
This course examines the underlying economics of successful business strategy: the strategic imperatives of competitive markets, the sources and dynamics of competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, and the organizational implementation of business strategy.
The course combines case discussion and analysis (approximately two thirds) with lectures (one third). The emphasis is on the ability to apply a small number of principles effectively and creatively, not the mastery of detailed aspects of the theory. The course offers excellent background for all consultants, managers and corporate finance generalists.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Jacopo Perego
Info - 3 points
ECONOMICS OF STRATEGIC BEHAVIOR
This course examines the underlying economics of successful business strategy: the strategic imperatives of competitive markets, the sources and dynamics of competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, and the organizational implementation of business strategy.
The course combines case discussion and analysis (approximately two thirds) with lectures (one third). The emphasis is on the ability to apply a small number of principles effectively and creatively, not the mastery of detailed aspects of the theory. The course offers excellent background for all consultants, managers and corporate finance generalists.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Jacopo Perego
Info - 3 points
Ethical Decision-Making: how to make eth
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
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Instructor:
Thalia Porteny
Info - 1.5 points
FUTURE-WORLD ECON AFT FINC CRIS
This course addresses the main global macroeconomic risks faced by businesses and governments in the present post-financial crisis era. Some of the questions that we examine include: What are the risks of future financial crises and what are the consequences of new financial regulation? Are the large government debts in the industrialized world going to be problematic over the longer term? What are the main risks with the path of current monetary policies in different nations? How are technological innovation and globalization structurally changing the labor market? And how should companies, government, and workers respond? How is the growth of emerging economies changing energy and other commodity markets and how is this impacting the environment? Is the US dollar declining in importance as the worlds reserve currency? The class will address these topics as a conversation through which the two faculty members will highlight the linkages between theory and practice. Since the course draws heavily from current events, it is critical for students to stay informed about current macroeconomic news, and active class participation throughout the term is very important and highly encouraged.
- Department: Business Economics
- 3 points
Doing Business in Africa: the Next Front
Understand the art of deal-making and business development in Africa from a leading practitioner, with an emphasis on Sub Saharan Africa. This course will be relevant to students with an interest in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in Africa, and emerging markets more broadly.
Students will gain a deep understanding of the dynamic business ecosystems across Africa and the macroeconomic policies shaping the continent’s future. We will dissect case studies of prominent deals, local success stories and failures, profiles in leadership, economic policy, and the experience of multinational firms in Africa. Students will gain applied practice in building a business in Africa, in investment analysis, learn how to originate and pitch a transaction to an important Africa-based client, and deliver arguments to a global multinational demonstrating why investing in Africa promises superior risk weighted returns.
What “prize” does Africa offer businesses and investors from its’ exploding population, and what is the consequence for the world if Africa fails to deliver resources to its’ people? What is the future for “engine room” countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia? Which companies have “made it”, what are the “traps” for firms, and how can entrepreneurs structure businesses and deals to mitigate risk? How do we compare and contrast the impact of different economic policy models on private sector development in emerging markets? How are the USA and China fairing in their battle for Africa?
Students will learn the latest trends across industries in Africa, from consumer, energy, fintech and industrial processes and how technology is revolutionizing Africa, helping to leapfrog from traditional processes to efficient, fast moving and transformative processes. Develop a clear understanding of the forces driving the continent, and where the opportunities by country and industry lie. Learn the regulatory traps, and how they impact business development. And experience firsthand how negotiating the public–private interface, networking, and sensitivity to subtle language, cultural and historical references can make the difference between success and failure when doing business in Africa. As Africa enters the age of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, prepare yourself for the world’s last largely untapped market.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Colin Coleman
Info - 3 points
JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS
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.
- Department: Political Science
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Instructor:
Jeffrey R Lax
CULPA: 32 h-index: 22 Info - 4 points
Lessons in Transformative Advances
Lessons in Trnsfrmtv Adva
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
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Instructor:
Amarnath V Bhide
Info - 3 points
Seminar in Music Composition
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).
- Department: Music
- 3 points
Blackness and the Psy Disciplines in Nin
19th-20th Cen Blackness &
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
.
- Department: History
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Instructor:
Samuel K Jr Roberts
Info - 4 points
Health Technology Assessment
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.
- Department: Health Policy & Management
- 1.5 points
Music Beyond 12 Tone Temperament I
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.
- Department: Music
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Instructor:
Georg Friedrich Haas
Info - 3 points
Macroeconomic Policy
Macroeconomics is in the news every day. Anyone who pays attention to the news knows that the crash in the US housing market in 2008 caused dramatic perturbations to financial markets all around the world. This, in turn, triggered very strong responses by governments in the US (in particular the Federal Reserve and the Treasury), as well as in other countries. This meltdown in financial markets and the interventions from policymakers raise a number of key questions about the health and the future of the economy in the US and abroad, which we will address in the Global Economic Environment II course.This course is a sequel to the core course Global Economic Environment. Building on the fundamentals introduced in that course, we develop a conceptual framework to explain the complex interactions between macroeconomic policy, asset prices, and business cycle fluctuations. In particular, we examine macroeconomic forecasting, determinants, and implications of budget deficits, the conduct and implementation of monetary policy, and the determinants of inflation in the U.S. and other market economies around the world. Special attention is given to the interactions between macroeconomic forces and asset prices.Since an important goal of this course is for students to become informed and sophisticated consumers of economic news, the issues discussed in this course draw heavily from current events and real-world examples.
Note I: The core course GEE while recommended is not a pre-requisite for taking GEEII. Students who expect to exempt from the core course GEE are recommended to take GEEII instead.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Shang-Jin Wei
Wikipedia h-index: 96 Info - 1.5 points
Taxes and Business Strategy
Benjamin Franklin once reportedly said that “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Had he known about the future estate tax, he would have been able to eloquently tie these certainties together. The estate tax is but one tax we will cover in this course. Taxes play an integral role not only in our personal lives, but also in driving the determinants and consequences of nearly every business decision. This course provides a conceptual framework to understand how taxes affect optimal business decisions. Additionally, this course will provide guidance on how to determine when and whether such strategies should be utilized. Regardless of what direction your business career takes you, understanding these forces and the strategies available will prove to be a valuable asset. Using examples from a wide range of contexts including investments, capital structuring, compensation planning, and mergers and acquisitions, students will become familiar with the structure of tax law, learn to recognize tax planning opportunities, gain an understanding of how to balance tax efficiency with business needs, and gain experience using a knowledge of how tax works to appropriately improve business outcomes.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Lawrence Skor
Info - 3 points
Trade and Industrial Policies (TIPs)
Cross-border trade, tariffs, migration, and industrial policy affect the profitability of firms and purchasing power of households. News about them affect exchange rates and other asset prices.
This course develops a series of conceptual frameworks to help the students better understand the complex effects of trade, industrial, and immigration policies on business, employment, investment, and the economy. We examine the rationales behind various policy ideas and analyze the practical implementations of such policies in both advanced economies and developing countries.
An important feature of the course is a discussion of contemporary news and real-world events at the beginning of each session. We will show how our understanding of the news can be enhanced by our frameworks. By the end of this course, the students will become better informed and more sophisticated consumers of business and economic news, with tools to translate them into possible business or investment actions.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Shang-Jin Wei
Wikipedia h-index: 96 Info - 1.5 points
Business Experiments: Analytics for Caus
In a data-driven business world, understanding cause-and-effect relationships is crucial for decision-making. This course introduces MBA students to modern experimental techniques, with a focus on randomized control trials (RCTs, also often called A/B tests), which are widely used to gain actionable insights in real business contexts. Students will learn how to design, execute, and analyze experiments that reveal the true impact of business strategies and allow for data-driven decisions. By the end of the course, students will have the practical tools and confidence to understand and apply experimental methods in answering questions and optimizing business practices in a variety of industries.
- Department: Business Economics
- 3 points
Business Experiments: Analytics for Caus
In a data-driven business world, understanding cause-and-effect relationships is crucial for decision-making. This course introduces MBA students to modern experimental techniques, with a focus on randomized control trials (RCTs, also often called A/B tests), which are widely used to gain actionable insights in real business contexts. Students will learn how to design, execute, and analyze experiments that reveal the true impact of business strategies and allow for data-driven decisions. By the end of the course, students will have the practical tools and confidence to understand and apply experimental methods in answering questions and optimizing business practices in a variety of industries.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Laura E Boudreau
Info - 3 points
Trade-Barrier Mitigation Strategies
Following the dramatic change in US trade policy in recent years, businesses are now forced to navigate an increasingly complicated patchwork of “managed trade” agreements, myriad tariff rates, and complicated non-tariff barriers such as product certification, safety standards, and import-export controls on strategic resources and technologies. This course will explore the economic impact of these developments on business and analyze some of the specific strategies companies can and are implementing to mitigate the impact of greater trade frictions, increased policy volatility, higher costs, and more difficult compliance.
This course has been developed and will be delivered by a teaching team with substantial experience in senior leadership roles in national and international policy, strategy in large multinationals with cross-border value chains, and advisory with hundreds of companies as the co-lead of BCG’s world-wide trade practice. Participants in the course will, therefore, gain insights on trade-barrier mitigation strategies from the perspective of practitioners and through the lens of specific, practical case studies of how companies have adapted sourcing, supply chains, manufacturing, sales, and distribution to rapidly changing policies and challenges. Students will be equipped with a solid grasp of the shifting fundamentals of what remains of the global trading system, varied regional and sectoral structures, and the emerging great-power economic multiplex. Group work is a fundamental component of this course.
- Department: Business Economics
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Instructor:
Brett House
Info - 1.5 points
Atmospheric and Climate Science for Publ
ATMOSPHERIC & CLIMATE SCI
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
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Instructor:
Robbie Parks
Info - 3 points
CRITICAL ISSUES METHODOLOGIES
A LASSOA LOOPTRAVELS IN TIME
- Department: Visual Arts
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Instructor:
Tyler S Coburn
Info - 3 points
DIGITAL STORY TELLING I: History and The
HISTORY&THEORY OF INTERACTIVIT
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.
- Department: Film
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Instructor:
Char Simpson
Info - 3 points
Capital Markets & Investments
This course provides students with a rigorous foundation in capital markets and investments, emphasizing asset valuation from an applied perspective. It covers valuation techniques for financial securities, essential to portfolio management and risk management applications. Key topics include arbitrage, the term structure of interest rates, portfolio theory, diversification, equilibrium asset pricing models such as the CAPM, market efficiency and inefficiencies, performance evaluation, analysis of common pooled investment vehicles, behavioral finance, and tax-aware investment strategies. Through interactive activities, case studies, and simulations utilizing real-world market data, students will acquire analytical skills and foundational knowledge required for advanced finance courses and practical roles within the investment industry
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Jeffrey Saret
Info -
Instructor:
Paulo Costa
Info -
Instructor:
Kevin Yuan
Info -
Instructor:
Jeffrey Saret
Info - 3 points
Molecular Epidemiology
MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGY
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
- 3 points
Corporate Financial Management
Formerly known as Advanced Corporate Finance develops the art and science of optimal strategic decision-making by applying corporate financial theory to cases of financial policy, financial instruments and valuation. In particular, the following topics are studied: cost of capital and capital budgeting, discounted cash flow valuation and financial multiples, payout policy, equity and debt financing, option pricing theory and applications, corporate control and recapitalizations. The classes are structured to maximize the synergy between theory and practice, providing students portable, durable and marketable tools for their internships and careers.
Molecular Toxicology
MOLECULAR TOXICOLOGY
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the molecular events associated with chemically-induced degenerative and proliferative diseases.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Greg A Freyer
Info - 3 points
DEBT MARKETS
Debt capital markets have become one of the world’s main providers of credit, coordinating the complex and sometimes conflicting needs of issuers and investors. None of the participants come with the same information, giving rise to diverse intermediaries that help the markets clear.
This course will examine how debt markets have evolved to meet the funding needs of governments, businesses and households as well as the investment needs of central banks, commercial banks, insurers, mutual funds, hedge funds and other institutions. It will cover the securities, financing and derivatives markets that have developed as a result. Beyond benchmark government debt, the course will cover corporate debt markets where companies ranging from the strongest to the weakest issue a wide range of instruments to attract a distinct set of investors. The course will also cover the markets in mortgage-backed securities and other securitizations, which have introduced a wide range of financial innovations and provided funding for residential and commercial mortgages, credit card and auto loans, student loans and business loans as well. The course will cover episodes where these markets succeed and where they fail.
This course is well suited to students considering careers with debt issuers, debt investors or the intermediaries that facilitate debt capital markets including sales and trading operations, information providers, regulators and others. Students will learn the institutional structure of these markets, the instruments that trade and basic principles of valuation and risk management.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Steven W Abrahams
Info - 3 points
ECONOMETRICS COLLOQUIUM
Prerequisites: ECON G6411 and G6412. Students will make presentations of original research.
- Department: Economics
- 2 points
ADV CONTINUUM MECHANICS
Review of continuum mechanics in Cartesian coordinates; tensor calculus and the calculus of variation; large deformations in curvilinear coordinates; electricity problems and applications.
- Department: Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
-
Instructor:
Gautam Dasgupta
CULPA: 3 h-index: 19 Info - 4 points
Principles of Toxicology
PRINCIPLES OF TOXICOLOGY
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
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Instructor:
Allison Kupsco
Info - 3 points
ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS COLLOQ
Prerequisites: G6215 and G6216. Open-economy macroeconomics, computational methods for dynamic equilibrium analysis, and sources of business cycles.
- Department: Economics
- 2 points
Digital Storytelling III: Immersive Prod
DS III: Immersive Product
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.
- Department: Film
-
Instructor:
Lance Weiler
CULPA: 1 Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Frameworks for Environmental Health Poli
FRAMEWORKS FOR ENVIR HLTH
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Darby W Jack
Info - 3 points
Science Basic to Public Health Practice
SCI BASIC TO PUB HEALTH P
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
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Instructor:
Norman Kleiman
h-index: 26 Info - 3 points
DOCUMENTARY PRODUCING
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.
- Department: Film
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Instructor:
Chloe Gbai
Info - 3 points
SHAKESPEARE IN PERFORMANCE
This class, will primarily focus on the challenges of interpreting and performing Shakespeare.
- Department: Theatre Arts
-
Instructor:
Scott V Whitehurst
Info - 3 points
CRITICAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ART
CRIT ISSUES:IDIOMS
- Department: Visual Arts
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Instructor:
Shirly Bahar
Info - 3 points
The Analyst's Edge
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Private Equity Field Study
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).
- Department: Finance
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Instructor:
Michael Ewens
Info - 1.5 points
Risk Assessment, Communication, and Mana
RISK, ASSESSMENT, COMM/MG
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)."
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
- 1.5 points
Mergers & Acquisitions
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."
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Donna M Hitscherich
Info - 3 points
Mergers & Acquisitions
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."
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Donna M Hitscherich
Info - 3 points
Biology of Health and Aging
What is “health,” biologically speaking? What is aging? These big, controversial questions are the subject of much debate, but the answers are crucial to everything we do in public health: what kinds of treatments and research we pursue, how we evaluate our progress, and whether we make a difference in people’s lives. The current biomedical framework is built on a reductionist view of these questions, building up the organism one molecule, cell, or tissue at a time. However, new research is increasingly showing us the interconnected nature of our biological systems, where risk factors for one disease are often risk factors for many. This course will provide a foundation in this new research, showing how it relates to old knowledge and paradigms, and using it to build a global understanding of what an organism is, how it maintains it health, and how this gets lost during the aging process. All of this will be situated within a public health perspective: how can we, as public health researchers, use this knowledge to ask better questions, to identify true risks and evaluate interventions, and most importantly to grow the health of our societies.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
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Instructor:
Alan Cohen
Info - 1.5 points
Real Estate Finance
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Tomasz Piskorski
h-index: 21 Info - 3 points
Real Estate Finance
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Tomasz Piskorski
h-index: 21 Info - 3 points
Real Estate Transactions
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Quantitative Methods in Biomarkers Resea
Quant Methods in Biomarke
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Julie B Herbstman
Info - 1.5 points
Private Equity Allocation
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.
- Department: Finance
- 1.5 points
Experimental Methods in Biomarkers Resea
Exper Methods in Biomarke
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Maya A Kappil
Info - 1.5 points
Real Estate Development
Real estate development is the physical and financial process by which society fulfills its spatial needs. Housing, office buildings, hotels, industrial space, retail; all of these are created by private developers who have the vision and capacity to manage the risks of development. This course will provide an understanding of the real estate development process and its role in value creation for investors and the surrounding community. Topics will include project envisioning; location and site selection and evaluation; highest and best use analysis; zoning and land use regulation; building design and construction; capital stack (debt and equity; developer compensation); ownership structures; marketing, leasing, and asset management; and exit strategies. The class will also cover non-traditional development (e.g., adaptive re-use, affordable housing, modular and pre-fab), as well as the opportunities for entrepreneurs in this space. The class will include prominent guest speakers who will share their experience from the trenches. There will be one or two site visits to projects currently underway. Real Estate Finance or demonstrated financial work experience is a pre-requisite of this class.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Ben Atkins
Info - 3 points
Applied Credit Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
- 1.5 points
DIRECTOR-DESIGNER WORKSHOP
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.
- Department: Theatre Arts
- 3 points
Beyond the Boardroom: the Power of Smart
Most companies around the world are controlled by one or more large shareholders. These shareholders—whether founders and their families, private equity firms, activist investors, or institutional stakeholders—play a central role in their firms’ governance, actively shaping corporate decisions and oversight structures. Their involvement in the firm creates room for the board to serve not only as a monitoring body but also as a crucial source of strategic guidance and expertise.
- Department: Finance
- 1.5 points
Personal Finance
This course is meant to provide an overall framework for personal finance. This course is not providing financial advice and each individual’s personal context and additional research should be done before making financial decisions Most of this course is internationally applicable. However, certain topics will have more of a US centric focus: taxes, retirement accounts, mortgages This course will not cover more advanced strategies (e.g., bitcoin, angel investing, commodities, investing on margin)
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Paulo Costa
Info - 1.5 points
Impact Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Mark Berryman
Info - 1.5 points
Activist Value Investing for Small Cap C
Activist VI for Small Cap
- Department: Finance
- 1.5 points
International Value Investing
This course is designed to create awareness of the differences between investing in the United States and investing outside of the United States. Fundamental security analysis aimed at understanding a company’s economic profile is only one component of the analysis of any business. The legal, cultural, and macroeconomic framework under which a company operates can have a significant impact on investment outcomes.
The major topics covered include defining the investable space, understanding the mechanics of investing, macroeconomic and country based policy influences on company valuation, the legal rights of minority shareholders in different markets, cultural influences on valuation and business economics, international economic crises and how to invest, the development of capital markets, and fundamental security analysis of foreign companies.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Nicholas D Samra
Info - 1.5 points
ADVANCED PLAY DIRECTING SEMINAR
ADV. PLAY DIRECTING SEMIN
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.
- Department: Theatre Arts
-
Instructor:
Anne Bogart
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Managing Large Pools of Assets for Famil
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Climate Finance
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Bruce M Usher
Info - 1.5 points
Navigating China
No business and no government can ignore China. The Peoples Republic of China is the second largest economy in the world and is on course to overtake the US economy sometime in the future. China represents huge opportunities for businesses and public policies but it also presents a set of tough challenges. This course is designed to provide a framework for understanding these issues. As several other emerging market economies hope to follow Chinas footsteps, the conceptual framework in the course should help one to better appreciate risks and rewards in these economies as well. In this course, we will discuss what motivates the Chinese as savers, consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs. We will explore both the people factor and the government factor underlying Chinas growth story. We will not be satisfied with simply repeating the conventional wisdoms, but will probe deeper than what we often read or hear. We will also combine conceptual knowledge with practical insight by inviting distinguished speakers with rich business or government experience to share their perspectives on Chinas business environment and other related topics.
- Department: Business Economics
-
Instructor:
Shang-Jin Wei
Wikipedia h-index: 96 Info - 3 points
Security Analysis
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Christopher Begg
Info - 3 points
Advanced Global Macroeconomic Investing
Advanced Global Macroeconomic Investing is a practitioner‑developed and led elective that prepares students to apply modern macroeconomic analysis to portfolio construction, asset‑allocation decisions, and systematic and discretionary global‑macro strategies. Building on the CBS core and the foundations of Global Macroeconomic Investing (B8213/B7213), the course trains students to connect macroeconomic regimes, structural forces, policy developments, and market dynamics to actionable investment frameworks.
The course focuses on the implementation of advanced tools used across leading macro hedge funds and institutional investment teams, including risk‑budgeting techniques, alternative risk premia, regime‑switching models, high‑frequency economic indicators, machine‑learning applications, geopolitical and structural trend analysis, and cross‑asset volatility and convexity frameworks. Students also examine real‑world execution challenges such as liquidity management, policy reaction functions, and trading in dislocated markets.
- Department: Business Economics
-
Instructor:
Brett House
Info - 1.5 points
Public Health GIS
PUBLIC HEALTH GIS
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Joel Capellan
Info - 3 points
Public Health GIS
PUBLIC HEALTH GIS
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.
- Department: Environmental Health Sciences
-
Instructor:
Joel Capellan
Info - 3 points
Applied Value Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Kevin Oro-Hahn
Info - 3 points
Applied Value Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Applied Value Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Applied Value Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Applied Value Investing
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Eric A Gandhi
Info - 3 points
Advanced Investment Research
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Kian Ghazi
Info - 3 points
Mental Models, Investment Fram
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.
- Department: Finance
- 3 points
Derivatives (Full-Term)
Successful investing in equities markets requires more than just picking stocks given the wide array of equity products at a portfolio managers disposal. This course is intended to explain how derivative products like options, futures, ETFs, structured notes, portfolio trades, credit default swaps and convertible bonds are structured, valued and used by all types of investors globally.The course is designed from both the perspective of the trader who has to account for the real-world costs of hedging derivatives and the investor who cares primarily how the derivative can improve the return or reduce the risk of his/her portfolio. It should complement other classes you have had on derivatives.My course notes have been, developed from the experiences I have had working with institutional and private clients for 18 years at Goldman Sachs.The course is broken into three sections:Indices, Exchange Traded Funds, Futures, Swaps and Portfolio Trading The course starts with a discussion of "Delta 1" equity derivatives, or products that move one for one with the underlying security.Equity Options, Credit Derivatives and Convertibles and Structured Notes Drawing on what youve already learned in other options classes, we explore options based equity and credit products, like equity options, structured notes, credit default swaps and convertible bonds. The goal of this portion of the course is to focus on what real-world factors influence trading in these products and show how they are linked to one another.Strategies A large component of this course involves exploring how investors use these products. Some investors, like pension, mutual and hedge funds, are driven by economic and risk management needs solely in their use of equity derivatives. Corporations, individuals and insurance companies worry about accounting, legal and tax considerations, so any discussion of how they use derivatives requires we cover those issues.Investors outside the United States have unique strategies because of the way the markets developed in Europe and Asia. We discuss these strategies in the last few classes.The material will be delivered through a combination of lectures, guest speakers, case studies and readings. Guest speakers include trading and research business leaders at investment banks and pension funds, as well as investment management institutions."
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Mark Zurack
CULPA: 1 Info - 3 points
Hedge Funds
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.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Fa Savoldelli
Info - 3 points
Legal Financial Arbitrage: Merger Arbitr
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).
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Kent Daniel
h-index: 25 Info - 2 points
Foundations of Business Law
This course is not a traditional business law survey class. This course is an application-oriented class that provides the business professional with an understanding of certain essential legal concepts that are an integral part of the decision-making process for a business enterprise to operate effectively in the United States.
The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a framework that will enable the student to identify legal issues that arise in various circumstances during the operation of a business enterprise. This course will focus primarily on the legal regime in the United States, although the laws of other jurisdictions will be noted where appropriate.
The course is highly interactive – legal principles will be imparted as students seek to identify legal issues arising in actual business situations. Daily student class participation is a significant element of the course, accounting for 20% of the student grade.
- Department: Finance
-
Instructor:
Donna M Hitscherich
Info - 1.5 points
Principles of Epidemiology III: Applied
PRINS/EPID III:DATA ANALY
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.
- Department: Epidemiology
-
Instructor:
Teresa Janevic
Info - 3 points
EPIDEMIOLOGY III
- Department: ONLINE MS IN EPIDEMIOLOGY
-
Instructor:
Amelia Boehme
h-index: 21 Info - 3 points
Short Selling
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
- Department: Finance
- 1.5 points
Readings in Twentieth Century U.S. Histo
Readings in 20th C. U.S.
This course, intended for graduate students, exposes students to some “classics” in 20th century U.S. historiography with newer scholarship that reconceptualizes the American past. Readings cover topics including labor, class and capitalism; political divides and comparative civil rights movements; race and migration; gender, sexuality, and reform; urbanization and suburbanization; health and environment; and relationships between human and non-human historical agents. Discussions of texts will build necessary skills in critical reading and understanding authors’ arguments, sources and methods, scope and style, and historiographical intervention. This course will require one oral presentation on a supplementary book; a historiographical essay on a 20th c. topic of the student’s choosing; and a professional assignment of writing either a lesson plan or lecture.
- Department: History
-
Instructor:
Lori Flores
Info - 4 points
Psychiatric Epidemiology
PSYCHIATRIC EPIDEMIOLOGY
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.
- Department: Epidemiology
-
Instructor:
Katherine M Keyes
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
SEM-ETHNOMUSICLGY:FLD MTHDS I
A study of the theoretical and practical aspects of ethnomusicological fieldwork, using the New York area as a setting for exercises and individual projects.
- Department: Music
-
Instructor:
Christopher J Washburne
CULPA: 31
Info
- 3 points
POLIT ECONOMY OF DEVELOPMENT
Why are some nations able to grow and prosper while others mired in conflicts and poverty? What are the political factors that shape countries’ success in growing their economies How does economic progress affect a regime’s ability to stay in power and the prospects and direc-tions of political changes? This course addresses these questions by introducing students to major ideas and findings from both classical and cutting-edge scholarship on political economy of de-velopment. The first part of the course will review major episodes of growth (or the lack thereof) in human history and how they influenced the theoretical paradigms for studying development. The second half of the course will be devoted to more specialized topics, examining how differ-ent institutions, strategies, and contingencies affect countries’ economic fortunes. The goal of the course is to help you acquire the necessary conceptual and empirical toolkit for digesting and producing scholarly knowledge about the origins and consequences of economic development.
- Department: Political Science
-
Instructor:
Junyan Jiang
h-index: 8 Info - 4 points
Black British Art & Theory
This course considers visual culture in Britain in the context of Black European studies. The discipline of cultural studies, which evolved in postwar Birmingham, intersected with the rise of black consciousness throughout Britain in the 1980s. How did the interactions of intellectuals and artists at this moment in the late 20th century lead to the creation of strong postcolonial theory and practice? We will consider the role of medium (particularly film and video), feminism, issues of diaspora, migration, and globalization, and the emergence of Black European Studies. Readings include texts by Hazel Carby, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Kobena Mercer. We will look at visual production and film by artists such as Sonia Boyce, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Ingrid Pollard, Chris Ofili, Isaac Julien, and Khadija Saye among others.
- Department: Art History and Archaeology
-
Instructor:
Kellie Jones
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia Info - 4 points