This course combines history, literature and film to explore the complex question of return — as fantasy, policy, horizon, paradox, temporary practice or new departure. Drawing largely on Francophone and Arab perspectives, we will delve into the history of displacement and migrations, nostalgia and hauntings, to explore the many figures of return: the exile, the soldier, the transfuge, the impostor… We will range widely in time and space, from the Odyssey to Dahomey, from Martin Guerre to Ghassan Kanafani. We will study the shifting politics and affects that have attended ideas of return, from ancient arcadias to immigrant communities and repatriated works of art. Co-taught by a historian and a poet and featuring guest speakers and practitioners, this seminar offers a truly interdisciplinary approach to one of the most vexed questions of our time.
This seminar provides an overview of the mechanisms and behaviors associated with neural plasticity. Students will obtain a basic working knowledge of the different types of neural plasticity, and how these affect cognition and behaviors.
There is nothing more important to us than the feelings that we have. But where do our emotions come from and why do we sometimes feel differently from our peers? The reason usually involves an understanding of one’s developmental history. This course uses a developmental approach to address emotional brain-behavior relationships. We will discuss theoretical papers and empirical work that covers typical and atypical behavior and the neurobiology that supports behavioral change across age. A translational approach is taken that uses animal models and human examples to illustrate these developmental trajectories. We will cover experimental approaches during discussion of each topic.
The course will examine both acknowledged indicators of women’s and girls’ inclusion in the conceptualization and life of a city (e.g., access to shelter, clean water, sanitation, safe transport, healthcare, education, jobs and leadership positions), and those not sufficiently acknowledged (stability and tenure in housing, labor force inclusion and wage parity, physical, mental and environmental health, sexual and reproductive rights, freedom from violence, assured levels of participation in policy- and decision-making, etc.). Migrating between multiple cultural and sociopolitical contexts, and between the individual and metropolitan, national and indigenous levels of policymaking, the course will look at how today’s cities have evolved; the consequential disconnect between enshrined legal frameworks, regulatory and administrative structures, and concrete urban realities; and at how, through a sustainable process of inclusive community and private sector engagement, responsive design, and strategic budgeting to realize select well-defined priorities, tomorrow’s cities can be better attuned to the human scale of their primary constituents by becoming more aware, inclusive, accommodating and enabling of women and families. Each week, one or more leading and cutting-edge thinkers and practitioners in the areas of urban and environmental design and management, corporate social responsibility, landscape architecture and planning, sustainable engineering, and urban health, wellbeing and women’s rights will share their experience, current thinking and ideas in featured guest lectures; these will be followed by wide-ranging conversations among the instructor, lecturers and students, enabling students to hear firsthand how private, public and non-profit sector managers, policymakers and designers approach and deal with such issues as (for instance) making transport hubs equally navigable for women with strollers, walkers or young children, or implementing green or family-friendly CSR policies.
This course will use clinical studies and experimental research on animals to understand the impact of stress during various periods of development on brain function and behavior. We will address the long- and short-term consequences of stress on cognition, emotion, and ultimately psychopathology through investigating how various stressors can induce neurobiological and behavioral outcomes through genetic, epigenetic, and molecular mechanisms in the brain.
Mediterranean Humanities I explores the literatures of the Mediterranean from the late Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century. We will read Boccaccio, and Cervantes, as well as Ottoman poetry, Iberian Muslim apocalyptic literature, and the Eurasian connected versions of the One Thousand and One Nights. We will dive into the travel of texts and people, stories and storytellers across the shores of the Middle Sea. Based on the reading of literary texts (love poetry, short stories, theater, and travel literature), as well as letters, biographies, memoirs, and other ego-documents produced and consumed in the Early Modern Mediterranean, we will discuss big themes as Orientalism, estrangement, forced mobility, connectivity, multiculturalism and the clash of civilizations. Also, following in the footsteps of Fernand Braudel and Erich Auerbach, we will reflect on the Mediterranean in the age of the first globalization as a laboratory of the modern global world and world literature.
Fundamental principles and objectives of health physics (radiation protection), the quantities of radiation dosimetry (the absorbed dose, equivalent dose, and effective dose) used to evaluate human radiation risks, elementary shielding calculations and protection measures for clinical environments, characterization and proper use of health physics instrumentation, and regulatory and administrative requirements of health physics programs in general and as applied to clinical activities.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213 The theory of international trade, comparative advantage and the factor endowments explanation of trade, analysis of the theory and practice of commercial policy, economic integration. International mobility of capital and labor; the North-South debate.
In this class, students will travel to Cuttyhunk Island in Massachusetts to explore issues of history, sustainability, and climate change. It will serve to address the one-credit practicum requirement in the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development. The overarching question students will ask is: what does it mean to inhabit a place well? To answer this, students will read a selection of literary, historical, and scientific texts while performing physical labor including meal preparation and oyster cultivation on Cuttyhunk Island and assuming responsibility for their classmate community through self-governance. Taught in collaboration with faculty at the Gull Island Institute, the course enables students to critically investigate multiple ways in which knowledge of place is produced and to explore how such knowledge informs, and ought to inform, practices of sustainable development. In traveling to Cuttyhunk Island, students will take up a standpoint from which to consider their own learning goals and develop approaches to more fruitfully engaging the places of Manhattan Island and the Columbia University campus in the course of their SDEV studies.
The class will use the physical setting of islands, and the conjunction of seminar with labor, self-governance, and everyday life, to connect different kinds of knowledge across boundaries of discipline and tradition, thought, and embodied practice. Students will analyze written texts, but they will also be challenged to read and interpret a piece of the landscape, an object, or ecosystem through their immersive experience on Cuttyhunk Island. Readings will investigate the natural and human histories of the Buzzards Bay region, contemporary sustainability efforts on Cuttyhunk, as well as the wider assumptions and categories that shape the ideas of sustainability and habitability: what models of action and agency are entailed in these concepts? What relationships between humans and non-human (beings and environments) do such concepts presuppose? Finally, what skills, structures, and actions are necessary to make places habitable, and inhabit them well?
Aimed at seniors and graduate students. Provides classroom experience on chemical engineering process safety as well as Safety in Chemical Engineering certification. Process safety and process control emphasized. Application of basic chemical engineering concepts to chemical reactivity hazards, industrial hygiene, risk assessment, inherently safer design, hazard operability analysis, and engineering ethics. Application of safety to full spectrum of chemical engineering operations.
Prerequisites: (MDES GU4510) and (MDES GU4511) 3RD Year Modern Hebrew or the instructor's permission. This course focuses on central identities shaping Israeli society and is designed to give students extensive experience in reading Hebrew. Through selected readings of contemporary literary works and media texts, students will increase their proficiency in Hebrew and enhance their understanding of Israeli culture and society. All readings, written assignments, and class discussions are in Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
An interdisciplinary investigation into Italian culture and society in the years between World War I and the present. Drawing on historical analyses, literary texts, letters, film, cartoons, popular music, etc. the course examines some of the key problems and trends in the cultural and political history of the period. Lectures, discussion and required readings will be in English. Students with a knowledge of Italian are encouraged to read the primary literature in Italian.
Advanced Moving Image: Video, Film, Art & Movement
is an advanced moving image class which centers on the use of both established and emergent digital technologies as a medium for exploration and artistic expression. The focus will be on artworks that reference the body/bodies in movement, the creation of Avatars and the designing of environments and spatial narratives. Existing works from this emergent area will be shown to give cultural and historical context, seen through a personal and political lens. The course will be intensive and hands-on, the apprehension of technical and aesthetic skills will be utilized to create works based on the individual or collective expression of the artist/s.
Students are encouraged to explore areas of personal interest and to incorporate this research
into their production work. Taking an active role in class discussions and production teamwork is
required. The course is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students. It is expected that at the end of the course students will have gained an active knowledge of core concepts and techniques useful in working with performance capture within an art context.
Prerequisites: ECON UN3211 and ECON UN3213. Econ GU4505 is an
elective in the economics major. The course develops models for the
analysis of the determinants of international capital flows, trade
imbalances, and exchange rates. The models are then used as the basis
for the discussion of topics such as Global Imbalances, Uncertainty and
the Current Account, The Global Saving Glut, Purchasing Power Parity,
Sudden Stops, Real Exchange Rates and Productivity, Covered Interest
Rate Parity, Uncovered Interest Rate Parity, Borrowing Externalities and
Optimal Capital Controls, Overborrowing, Macroeconomic Adjustment under
Flexible and Fixed Exchange Rates, Twin Deficits, and Balance of
Payment Crises.
Aims to give the student a broad overview of the role of Operations Research in public policy. The specific areas covered include voting theory, apportionment, deployment of emergency units, location of hazardous facilities, health care, organ allocation, management of natural resources, energy policy, and aviation security. Draws on a variety techniques such as linear and integer programming, statistical and probabilistic methods, decision analysis, risk analysis, and analysis and control of dynamic systems.
Prerequisites: CHNS W4007 or the equivalent. Admission after placement exam. Focusing on Tang and Song prose and poetry, introduces a broad variety of genres through close readings of chosen texts as well as the specific methods, skills, and tools to approach them. Strong emphasis on the grammatical and stylistic analysis of representative works. CC GS EN CE
Students carry out a semester-long process or product design project. The project culminates with a formal written design report and a public presentation.
Renewable energy such as wind and photovoltaics, hydrogen, electric vehicles, and building decarbonization; geothermal energy and resources; data centers; smart inverters; energy storage technologies; automated metering infrastructure (AMI); distributed energy resource management (DERMS); cybersecurity for the grid.
Applies core tools of Executive Master of Science Program to development or design challenge in concentration area. Integrates learning to practice the application of new skills. Students can propose a challenge or join an existing challenge proposed by faculty.
Management of complex projects and the tools that are available to assist managers with such projects. Topics include project selection, project teams and organizational issues, project monitoring and control, project risk management, project resource management, and managing multiple projects.
Teams of students work on real-world projects in analytics. Focus on three aspects of analytics: identifying client analytical requirements; assembling, cleaning and organizing data; identifying and implementing analytical techniques (e.g., statistics and/or machine learning); and delivering results in a client-friendly format. Each project has a defined goal and pre-identified data to analyze in one semester. Client facing class. Class requires 10 hours of time per week and possible client visits on Fridays.
Prerequisites: Third Year Modern Hebrew I or Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II Focus on transition from basic language towards authentic Hebrew, through reading of un-adapted literary and journalistic texts without vowels. Vocabulary building. Grammar is reviewed in context. A weekly hour is devoted to practice in conversation. Daily homework includes reading, short answers, short compositions, listening to web-casts, or giving short oral presentations via voice e-mail. Frequent vocabulary quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Prerequisites: one year of biology. This is a lecture course designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The focus is on understanding at the molecular/biochemical level how genetic information is stored within the cell, how it is replicated and expressed, and how it is regulated. Topics covered include genome organization, DNA replication and repair, transcription, RNA processing, and translation. This course will also emphasize the critical analysis of the scientific literature and help students understand how to identify important biological problems and how to address them experimentally. SPS and TC students may register for this course, but they must first obtain the written permission of the instructor, by filling out a paper Registration Adjustment Form (Add/Drop form). The form can be downloaded at the URL below, but must be signed by the instructor and returned to the office of the registrar.
http://registrar.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/reg-adjustment.pdf
Prerequisites: advanced music major and extensive contemporary music background. Analysis of the modern repertory of contemporary music with directional emphasis on actual conducting preparation, beating patterns, rhythmic notational problems, irregular meters, communication, and transference of musical ideas. Topics will include theoretical writing on 20th-century conducting, orchestration, and phrasing.
Entrepreneurship is one of the most important economic activities shaping the United States. Entrepreneurial processes play a role in delivering new solutions to social problems, they are a strong determinant of wealth inequality and spatial disparities, and underlie technological progress. The class Foundations of Entrepreneurship provides any undergraduate student a comprehensive introduction to what entrepreneurship is and how it functions, including understanding how an idea evolves into a company, the role of key actors in an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and experiencing the entrepreneurial process. The class is valuable to any student in science, engineering, and liberal arts who would like to understand what determines whether promising inventions and solutions fulfill their potential impact. It is offered as part of the Mendelson Center’s special program in business management.
The content is delivered incorporating lecture-based content, case discussions of existing companies, and group work to develop an early-stage idea and pitch it to a panel of investors.
Foundations of Entrepreneurship is a prerequisite to future lab-based entrepreneurship classes for undergraduates, Launch Your Startup and Entrepreneurial Greenhouse.
The Fifth Year Chinese course is designed for advanced learners who have a proficient command of the Chinese language in all four aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, regardless of whether they have Chinese heritage. The course provides a wide variety of literary genres, ranging from short stories to aesthetic essays to academic articles, to enhance students' mastery of formal written Chinese. While the primary objectives of this course lie in reading, students also have opportunities to develop their speaking competence through a variety of in-class discussions, debates, and presentations.
This seminar will explore the multidimensional interplay between collective memory, politics, and history in France since 1945. We will examine the process of memorializing key historical events and periods – the Vichy regime, the Algerian War, the slave trade – and the critical role they played in shaping and dividing French collective identity. This exploration will focus on multiple forms of narratives – official history, victims’ accounts, literary fiction – and will examine the tensions and contradictions that oppose them. The seminar will discuss the political uses of memory, the influence of commemorations on French collective identity, and the role played by contested monuments, statues and other “
lieux de mémoire
” (“sites of memory”). We will ask how these claims on historical consciousness play out in the legal space through an exploration of French “memorial laws”, which criminalize genocide denial and recognize slave trade as a crime against humanity. These reflections will pave the way to retracing the genesis of the “
devoir de mémoire
” (“duty to remember”), a notion that attempts to confer an ethical dimension to collective memory. The seminar will examine the multiple uses of the French injunction to remember – as a response to narratives of denial, as an act of justice towards the victims, and as an antidote to the recurrence of mass crimes and persecutions. We will examine how amnesty is used to reconcile conflicting collective memories and will evaluate the claim that the transmission
IEOR students only; priority to MSBA students. Survey tools available in Python for getting, cleaning, and analyzing data. Obtain data from files (csv, html, json, xml) and databases (Mysql, PostgreSQL, NoSQL), cover the rudiments of data cleaning, and examine data analysis, machine learning, and data visualization packages (NumPy, pandas, Scikit-lern, bokeh) available in Python. Brief overview of natural language processing, network analysis, and big data tools available in Python. Contains a group project component that will require students to gather, store, and analyze a data set of their choosing.
MSBA students only. Groups of students will work on real world projects in analytics, focusing on three aspects: identifying client analytical requirements; assembling, cleaning, and organizing data; identifying and implementing analytical techniques (statistics, OR, machine learning); and delivering results in a client-friendly format. Each project has a well-defined goal, comes with sources of data preidentified, and has been structured so that it can be completed in one semester. Client-facing class with numerous on-site client visits; students should keep Fridays clear for this purpose.
Covers advancements in the fields of cellular and developmental biology, molecular biology and materials science towards the development of “tissue engineered” therapies. Emphasis on tissue engineering therapies applied to musculoskeletal tissues, such as bone, cartilage, and skeletal muscle, and nervous tissues (central and peripheral nervous system). Design considerations and concepts in market analysis examined.
MS IEOR students only. Introduction to machine learning, practical use of ML algorithms and applications to financial engineering and operations. Supervised learning: regression, classification, resampling methods, regularization, support vector machines (SVMs), and deep learning. Unsupervised learning: dimensionality reduction, matrix decomposition, and clustering algorithms.
What is good sex? What, even, is sex? Who should be having it with whom, and when? Why does sex hurt sometimes? Why does it feel incredible, when it does? What makes sex healthy? Normal? Who says? How do they know? Why?
Across the past hundred and fifty years, time doctors, biologists, psychologists, feminists, phrenologists, and LGBTQ activists have spent lifetimes struggling over the answers to these questions and more. In this class, we will explore the growth and development of the field of sexology, its vast impact on U.S. and German life and its imbrications with structures of oppression and visions of (often imperfect) liberation. To do so, we will read a range of both primary and secondary sources from a variety of different schools and perspectives.
The attempt to scientifically study and define sex fundamentally reshaped both sex and science. It changed how everyday people lived their lives and helping give birth to new scientific disciplines. It also helped produce and police idea of normal, healthy sex, and provided evolutionary justifications for heterosexuality and patriarchy. The activist response – both in and outside of the field of sexology – helped build the modern feminist and LGBTQ movements and reshaped how everyday people made sex of sex, gender, and sexuality. Even if deeply flawed, sexology was also widely contentious, with major scholars having their books burned and banned in both the United States and Germany.
How can we understand social realities that transcend territorial boundaries? How is the study of the region itself part of the region's story? This course explores these and related questions through Inner Northeast Asia, the borderland region that stretches between Russia, China, Mongolia, and Korea. Through selections from English language scholarship and translations of primary sources, this introduction to a region shaped by multiple legacies of imperial rule offers a chance to reflect on the limits of nation-states. No background knowledge or languages other than English are required.
Data visualization and how to build a story with data. Using complex data or statistics to communicate results effectively. Learn to present analysis and results conscisely and effectively.
“The possibility of pogroms,” claims Theodor Adorno, “is decided in the moment when the gaze of a fatally-wounded animal falls on a human being. The defiance with which he repels this gaze—’after all it's only an animal’—reappears irresistibly in cruelties done to human beings.” This course traces the development of Modern Hebrew literature, from its fin-de-siècle revival to contemporary Israeli fiction, through the prism of animality and animalization. We will focus on human-animal relations and animalization/dehumanization of humans in literary works by prominent Hebrew authors, including M.Y. Berdichevsky, Devorah Baron, S.Y. Agnon, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Orly Castel-Bloom, Almog Behar, Etgar Keret, and Sayed Kashua. Employing posthumanist and ecofeminist theoretical lenses, we will analyze the bio-political intersections of species and gender, as well as animalization as a process of otherization of marginalized ethnic groups. Throughout the course, we will ask questions, such as: why animals abound in Modern Hebrew literature? Are they merely metaphors for intra-human issues, or rather count as subjects? What literary devices are used to portray animals? How has the depiction of human-animal relations changed in Hebrew over the last 150 years? How do cultural and political frameworks inform representations of human-animal relations? No prior knowledge of Hebrew is required; all readings and class discussions will be in English. Course participants with reading knowledge of Hebrew are encouraged to consult the original literary texts, provided by the instructor upon request.
OKR framework and different variations. Measurement techniques (A/B testing, validation, correlation, etc.) Identifying what to measure in product experience and business initiatives. Data-driven decision making.
Applied Analytics focus querying and transforming data with SQL, defining and visualizing metrics, measuring impact of products / processes. Tools and techniques to convert raw data to business decisions, statistical analysis. Be able to apply these techniques to real-world datasets.
Introduction to fundamental aspects of immunology and engineering strategies to modulate the immune system to improve human health. We will cover the innate and adaptive immune system and current methods to characterize the immune response. Applications focus on cancer, vaccines, and autoimmune disorders.
Course covers major statistical learning methods for data mining under both supervised and unsupervised settings. Topics covered include linear regression and classification, model selection and regularization, tree-based methods, support vector machines, and unsupervised learning. Students learn about principles underlying each method, how to determine which methods are most suited to applied settings, concepts behind model fitting and parameter tuning, and how to apply methods in practice and assess their performance. Emphasizes roles of statistical modeling and optimization in data mining.
Practical implementation of neuroimaging techniques, data types, processing methods and clinical findings on independent datasets across a variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Basics from anatomy to digital image analysis will be explored culminating in a final project.
This seminar explores the intersections between Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy and key developments in artificial intelligence. We will examine how Wittgenstein’s later philosophy challenges contemporary debates about the capabilities and limitations of machine intelligence. We will also learn how AI practitioners actively engage with Wittgenstein’s ideas, developing innovative methods in machine translation, semantic networks, or natural language processing (NLP) in general.
This seminar provides an overview of sacrifice in both theory and practice. The concept of sacrifice, and its contestation, allows us to explore a range of issues and institutions related to the (often violent) act of “giving up,” or exchange. What must a sacrifice be, and how do its instantiations—for God; for country; for kin; for love; for rain; etc.—take shape? Readings are drawn from a range of sources, including Biblical texts and commentaries, the anthropological record, critical theory, comparative literature, and work on race and gender. The seminar aims to provide students with a strong foundation for relating sacrifice to broader concerns with the body, media/mediation, religion, politics, and kinship.
Required for all graduate students in the Medical Physics Program. Practicing professionals and faculty in the field present selected topics in medical physics.
Design, fabrication, and application of micro-/nanostructured systems for cell engineering. Recognition and response of cells to spatial aspects of their extracellular environment. Focus on neural, cardiac, coculture, and stem cell systems. Molecular complexes at the nanoscale.
Design, fabrication, and application of micro-/nanostructured systems for cell engineering. Recognition and response of cells to spatial aspects of their extracellular environment. Focus on neural, cardiac, coculture, and stem cell systems. Molecular complexes at the nanoscale.
The course covers a general introduction to the theory and experimental techniques of structural biology (protein expression and purification, protein crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance) and then how to use the structural information to understand biochemical and biological processes. The first part of the course will cover the general introduction to structural biology. The second part of the course will involve discussions and explorations of various structures, led by the instructor but with substantial participation from the students, to understand the molecular mechanisms of selected biochemical and biological processes. In the final part of the course, each student will select and lead discussions on a primary structural biology paper. The overall goal of the course is to increase the understanding of how protein structures are determined, what protein structures look like, and how to use the structures to understand biology.
The aim of this course is to examine the built environment of New York City as it enters – and helps define – the modern era. The scope of our study is the last quarter of the 19th century to today and the strategy to tackle the vast topic will be to highlight significant moments and monuments – for example, the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central, Empire State Building, NYCHA housing, the U.N. complex, postwar Park Avenue, the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and Twin Towers – and question “In what ways are they modern?”
The lectures and class discussion will explore the idea of modernity using multiple lenses, including technological advances, architectural style and ideology, products and sites of construction and real estate investment, and acts of government planning and social policy. Throughout, the urban dimension will be key in our critical analysis. Classroom sessions, for the most part, will be organized as lectures and discussions of assigned readings. There will also be sessions outside the classroom, including a visit to the drawing collection of Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and to The Skyscraper Museum, as well as a walking tour of Midtown Manhattan.
From the notion of a type-specimen for a species to a wild-type mouse strain, biology has long relied on the idea of an archetype. In reality, however, there is variation everywhere one looks—no wild-type, only mutants. This variation is what makes some families taller than others or more susceptible to autism. Making sense of these differences is what led from the study of “the” human genome to that of millions of genomes. Notably, this goal is central to precision medicine, undergirding accurate disease risk prediction and tailored individual treatments. This shift in perspective poses new and fundamental questions, challenging us to understand how genetic perturbations and environmental effects together give rise to human difference. The goal of this course is to provide a basis for the study of such questions, by focusing on the causes and consequences of human genetic variation. It aims to provide a fundamental toolbox with which to approach human genetic data and to facilitate access to exciting developments in the field, from weekly discoveries about our prehistory to major developments in our understanding of the genetic basis for disease risk. The basis for the course is a new, freely available textbook, An Owner’s Guide to the Human Genome, by Jonathan Pritchard.
This course is designed as an introductory exposure to entrepreneurial concepts and practical skills for engineering students (and others) who wish to explore entrepreneurship conceptually or as a future endeavor in their careers. The class will be a mix of lecture, discussion, team-building and in-the-field workshopping of concepts we cover.
The last decade of 20 th century witnessed a rapid convergence of three C’s: Communications, Computers, and Consumer Electronics. This convergence has given us the Internet, smart phones, and an abundance of data with Data Science playing a major role in analyzing these data and providing predictive analytics that lead to actionable items in many fields and businesses. Finance is a field with a large amount of information and data that can utilize the skills of Data Scientists, however, to be effective in this field a data scientist, in addition to analytic knowledge, should also be knowledgeable of the working, instruments, and conventions of financial markets that range from Foreign Exchange to Equities, Bonds, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies and host of other asset classes. The objective of this course is to provide Data Science students with a working knowledge of major areas of finance that could help them in finding a position in the Financial Industry. The wide range of topics covered in this course besides expanding the range of positions where students could be a fit, it gives them more flexibility in their job search. The course will also be of value to them in managing their own finances in the future.
Each offering of this course is devoted to a particular sector of Operations Research and its contemporary research, practice, and approaches. If topics are different, then course can be taken more than once for credit.
Each offering of this course is devoted to a particular sector of Operations Research and its contemporary research, practice, and approaches. If topics are different, then course can be taken more than once for credit.
Statistical machine learning techniques and advanced mathematical concepts for analysis of high-dimensional biomedical data. Topics include optimal transport and probabilistic modeling for multi-modal genomic and imaging data integration and analysis of spatial and temporal dynamics. Programming assignments, problem sets, and a final project will be required.
This Columbia University course offers a project-based learning experience focused on systematic quantitative investment. It covers the full data science workflow, from concept to performance evaluation. Students will engage in a real-time financial forecasting competition, using open-source financial and alternative data, to make and present investment decisions. Ideally, this course suits students aspiring to careers as quants or data scientists in the financial sector.
Since the 1950’s, built environments across Latin America increasingly served as testing grounds for new strategies of urban solidarity in architecture. Writing on the rapid modernization of this period, social theorists in the region have identified solidarity as a distinct marker of Latin American modernity. This seminar examines the role of architecture in this recent history of Latin America with a focus on the cultural forms and social practices that fostered solidarity processes since the mid-twentieth century. Through interdisciplinary and cross-border collaborations, communities, architects, social thinkers, and policy makers combined experimental ideas of aided housing and public spaces with new social concepts in efforts to restructure Latin American cities reshaped by the “great urban explosion.” These social projects in architecture were closely followed by their North American counterparts and soon connected vaster Pan-American territories. Seen primarily as the pursuit of egalitarian and inclusive values in the built environment, we will examine the many forms that these constructs of solidarity in Latin America assumed in architecture during the following decades.
Conceived to look closely and critically at the projects, social concepts, and institutions behind solidarity programs and designs, this seminar will concentrate on two interwoven threads: 1. Architectural theories and projects that fostered community, cross-class, or state programs of solidarity in the design of housing, public spaces and services; 2. The social theories and institutions that supported these approaches in architecture. From self-construction to “superbloques,” and from self-organized social movements to state-sponsored pre-fabrication, we will investigate the strategies through which Latin American communities and professionals redefined collaborative practices and pursued ideas of emancipation, autonomy, and social citizenship. Adopting a comparative and relational approach, we will examine how these architectural concepts, technologies, and social theories subsequently informed Pan-American movements for housing and building aid across Latin America.
The course focuses on a PRACTICAL study of how to quantify & predict RISK in organizations by using learnings from: Regression analysis; Monte Carlo simulation; Factor analysis; Cohort analysis; Cluster analysis; Time series analysis; Sentiment analysis. Expectation is that incoming students should have a basic understanding of such concepts and statistics. The course will offer meeting & listening to CXO's & top executives from companies who have implemented robust AI & Applied Risk solutions to solve real-world problems in their own industries.
It will give students a great opportunity to learn practical applications of predictive analytics to solve real business problems
By taking this course, students will gain the tools and knowledge to develop a comprehensive new venture that is scalable, repeatable and capital efficient. The course will help students formulate new business ideas through a process of ideation and testing. Students will test the viability of their ideas in the marketplace and will think through the key areas of new venture. The first part of the course will help students brainstorm about new ideas and test the basic viability of those ideas through of process of design and real world tests. After an idea is developed students will work towards finding a scalable, repeatable business model. We will cover customer discovery, market sizing, pricing, competition, distribution, funding, developing a minimal viable product and many other facets of creating a new venture. The course will end with students having developed a company blueprint and final investor pitch. Course requirements include imagination, flexibility, courage, getting out of the building, and passion.
In this course, you'll leverage student engagement data to create a photo and text recommendation app similar to Instagram/Twitter. This app will utilize AI-generated photos and text and require you to recommend a feed from over 500,000 pieces of AI generated content. We'll explore various techniques to achieve this, including, but not limited to: Candidate Generation (Collaborative filtering, Trending, Cold start, N-tower neural network models, Cross-attention teachers, Distillation, Transfer learning, Random graph walking, Reverse indexes, LLMs as embedding), Filtering (Small online models, Caching, Deduplication, Policy), Prediction/Bidding (User logged activity based prediction (time-series), Multi-gate mixture of experts (MMOE), Regularization, Offline/Online evaluation (NDCG, p@k, r@k), Boosted Trees, Value Based Bidding), Ranking (Re-ranking, Ordering, Diversity, Enrich/Metadata/Personalization, Value Functions), Misc (Data Privacy and AI Ethics, Creator Based Models, Declared, Explicit and implicit topics, Explore/Exploit, Interpret/Understand/Context/Intention).
These concepts are applicable to various recommendation systems, from e-commerce to travel to social media to financial modeling. The instructor's experience at Uber Eats, Facebook, Instagram, and Google will provide valuable insights into real-world use cases.
Fundamentals of nanobioscience and nanobiotechnology, scientific foundations, engineering principles, current and envisioned applications. Includes discussion of intermolecular forces and bonding, of kinetics and thermodynamics of self-assembly, of nanoscale transport processes arising from actions of biomolecular motors, computation and control in biomolecular systems, and of mitochondrium as an example of a nanoscale factory.
This graduate seminar examines the intersections of Edward Said’s
Orientalism
(1978) with the study of art, architecture, and visual culture. It asks how the Saidian critique—conceived in a literary framework—has been applied, adapted, and contested in the analysis of visual forms from the eighteenth century to the present. Foregrounding aesthetics as a political language, the course traces how “Orientalist” motifs and styles have been negotiated, re-appropriated, and hybridized, often complicating the very notion of an identifiable “Orientalist” aesthetic. We map sites where Orientalism is expected, where it proves elusive, and where the label itself obscures more than it reveals, while testing the usefulness—and limits—of
Orientalism
as an analytic for visual and spatial evidence. Along the way, we consider whether “Orientalism” functions as an artistic style; questions of authorship and intention in painterly practice and studio/market contexts; late Ottoman self-representation (e.g., Osman Hamdi Bey); neo-Orientalist urbanism and the redevelopment of Mecca; religion’s place in visual Orientalism (crusade imaginaries, typologies of the “Saracen” and the “Jew,” and “sacred photography”); the weaponization of Orientalist codes in propaganda and heritage destruction; the category of “Islamic art” and its historiography; and the museum—especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art—as a site where collecting, classification, and display mediate knowledge and power. The seminar closes by considering decolonial proposals that refine, extend, or challenge the Saidian paradigm for art and architectural history.
Topics include biomicroelectromechanical, microfluidic, and lab-on-a-chip systems in biomedical engineering, with a focus on cellular and molecular applications. Microfabrication techniques, biocompatibility, miniaturization of analytical and diagnostic devices, high-throughput cellular studies, microfabrication for tissue engineering, and in vivo devices.
Sumptuous attire, aromatics, heady intoxicants, pleasure gardens, water sports, and the games of love and sex. Medieval South Asians marshaled these and other aesthetic practices to fashion the spaces they moved in, show themselves to one another, and make sense of their social worlds. In this seminar, we approach the Indian subcontinent’s extensive body cultures in three related ways. Considering a range of visual media, we explore how bodies were imagined and constituted alongside image theories from early South Asia, portraiture, and the construction of personhood through epigraphs. What physical features characterized the bodies of ascetics, divinities, human beings, demi-gods, spirit deities, and even the body of the cosmos? How did certain visual markers communicate emotional states and moral attributes, such as defeat, grief, piety, and purity? Diving into the spaces period bodies occupied, we investigate how somatic cultures forged the accessories and accouterments of material existence. In tandem, we unpack the aesthetic values and theories central to medieval India’s court cultures, from kāma, līla, and alamkāra to rasa theory. Students will be encouraged to research and write on body cultures specific to their own regional or cultural interests.
What happens to a body stilled in space, when it takes a shape and holds it? How does its relationship to public space change? How is its transformation attenuated when the body is in formation with other bodies, a breathing still life of people and props? This performance art course will use the question of a body’s stillness as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between dance, sculpture, collaborative movement, and performance art. Through core readings and case study presentations, we will discuss unique possibilities of representation and challenges this form enables, and the prominent role it has been taking within the visual arts in recent years. Students will engage with a variety of aesthetic strategies and formal techniques such as movement workshops, sensory exercises, video, wearable sculptures, collaboration, scores, and group meditation. Studio work will focus on concrete intersections between the body and the object, and case studies chosen to encourage students to think of movement as a form of resistance, and to consider the political implication of collaborative work that unfolds over time. Performativity in the context of this class is widely defined, and no prior experience is required.
The course studies control strategies and their implementation in the discrete domain. Introduction with examples; review of continuous control and Laplace Transforms; review of continuous state-space representation and Solutions; review of difference equations, discretization in time and frequency, the WKS (aka Shannon) sampling theorem, windowing, filters, Transforms: Fourier series, Fourier transform, z-transform and their inverses; Ideal sampler, Sample-and-hold devices, zero, one, polygonal, and slewer hold; Transfer functions, block diagrams, and signal flow graphs for discrete systems; Discrete State-Space transformation, controllabililty, observability, and stability in the state-space domain. Discrete time and z domain analysis, steady state analysis, discrete-time root-locus, and pole-zero placement; Discrete Nyquist stability criterion, Bode plot, Gain and Phase Margin analysis, Nichols chart, bandwidth and sensitivity analysis; Design criteria, self-tuning regulator, Kalman filter, and simulation, followed by advanced stability analysis such as Lyapunov stability; Overview of the discrete Euler-Lagrange equations, discrete maximum and minimum principle, optimal linear discrete regulator design, optimality and dynamic programming.
Focus on capacity allocation, dynamic pricing and revenue management. Perishable and/or limited product and pricing implications. Applications to various industries including service, airlines, hotel, resource rentals, etc.
Additive manufacturing processes, CNC, Sheet cutting processes, Numerical control, Generative and algorithmic design. Social, economic, legal, and business implications. Course involves both theoretical exercises and a hands-on project.
Fundamentals of sustainable design and manufacturing, metrics of sustainability, analytical tools, principles of life cycle assessment, manufacturing tools, processes and systems energy assessment and minimization in manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing automation, sustainable manufacturing systems, remanufacturing, recycling and reuse.
Frontiers of Justice is designed to encourage students and equip them with the skills to become active and effective “Change Agents” within their academic institutions and larger communities.. Oriented by the question,
What does justice look like?
, this course aims to raise political and social awareness and engagement with the challenges facing New York City and strengthen ties between Columbia University, disadvantaged communities, and city government agencies and community organizations. Through sharing ideas about how to make structural and systemic change in ways that integrate science, law, politics, history, narrative and community engagement, the course is intended to support students in working to break down racial and ethnic barriers and toward a more fair and just society.
Introduction to industrial automation technologies. Recognizing, modeling and integration of industrial automation problems. Hands-on experiments with robots, computer vision, data management and programming. Sensors engineering and measurement tools; process control; automation hardware and software architectures; programmable logic controllers.
This course examines the transformation of natural environments, rural and urban landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special emphasis on the material and social lives of rivers, roads and infrastructure. We will draw on primary source readings (in English) and maps, as well as secondary readings in anthropology and human geography, to examine the processes of infrastructure creation, national integration, urbanization and adaptation in the Tibetan regions of China.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission; some basic knowledge of social psychology is desirable. A comprehensive examination of how culture and diversity shape psychological processes. The class will explore psychological and political underpinnings of culture and diversity, emphasizing social psychological approaches. Topics include culture and self, cuture and social cognition, group and identity formation, science of diversity, stereotyping, prejudice, and gender. Applications to real-world phenomena discussed.
This is a third year (or sixth semester) course in the Hindi-Urdu program that aims to continue building upon the existing listening, speaking, reading, writing and cultural skills in Hindi and Urdu. Students will be exposed to a variety of authentic materials, such as stories, plays, newspapers, magazines, videos and film clips. They will be expected to expand their vocabulary, enhance their grammatical accuracy and develop their cultural appropriateness through their enthusiastic participation in classroom activities and immersing themselves in the speech community outside.
The objective of the course is to promote meaningful interaction with literary texts and to strengthen students’ language skills to understand and describe situations and people in diverse academic settings of modern Hindi. Writing in the target language will be emphasized throughout the semester to enable students to use their diverse vocabulary and grammatical structures. The students will gain better understanding of the craft of creative writing in Hindi as the writers explore the innermost sentiments and compulsions of their characters to make us wonder about life, language and emotions, all in conjunction with each other.
Self-contained treatments of selected topics in soft materials (e.g. polymers, colloids, amphiphiles, liquid crystals, glasses, powders). Topics and instructor may change from year to year. Intended for junior/senior level undergraduates and graduate students in engineering and the physical sciences.
In lieu of the failure of legislatures to pass comprehensive carbon taxes, there is growing pressure on the financial system to address the risks of global warming. One set of pressures is to account for the heightened physical risks due to extreme weather events and potential climate tipping points. Another set of pressures are to find approaches to incentivize corporations to meet the goals set out in the Paris Treaty of 2015. These approaches include (1) mandates or restrictions to only hold companies with decarbonization plans, (2) development of negative emissions technologies such as direct-air capture and (3) promotion of natural capital markets that can be used to offset carbon emissions. Moreover, financial markets also provide crucial information on expectations and plans of economic agents regarding climate change. This course will cover both models and empirical methodologies that are necessary to assess the role of the financial system in addressing global warming.
Models for pricing and hedging equity, fixed-income, credit-derivative securities, standard tools for hedging and risk management, models and theoretical foundations for pricing equity options (standard European, American equity options, Asian options), standard Black-Scholes model (with multiasset extension), asset allocation, portfolio optimization, investments over longtime horizons, and pricing of fixed-income derivatives (Ho-Lee, Black-Derman-Toy, Heath-Jarrow-Morton interest rate model).
Students will learn how Western medical knowledge entered Japan, how it intersected with existing traditions such as kanpō, and how medicine was mobilized for nation-building, imperial expansion, and war. This course covers topics including the introduction of Western medical knowledge, the modernization and professionalization of medical practices, the advent of colonial medicine, and the ethical challenges of postwar biomedicine.
This course will explore major themes in the growing field of Sound Studies with a focus on the rich history of sound and varied cultures of sound and listening in the Indian subcontinent. The main questions that we will address include: how have political, commercial, and cultural movements shaped
what
the diverse populations of South Asia listen to and
how
they listen? How have different forms of media shaped/ informed listening experiences in South Asia? How do listening practices and cultures from the subcontinent differ from those in other regions? In this class we will listen to the human voice, rumor/gossip, gramophone, loud speakers, radio, film, and mp3. We will discuss the role political speeches, film songs, and devotional songs in shaping South Asian politics and culture in the twentieth-century as the subcontinent transitioned from colonial rule to nation-states. Drawing on the interdisciplinary nature of Sound Studies, we will read works from across the disciplines—anthropology, ethnomusicology, Religious Studies, Media Studies, and history. Organized thematically, this course will focus on the twentieth century, but the readings will address earlier time periods.
This is an upper-level undergraduate and graduate (MA) seminar. Students are expected to have some background in South Asian studies/history or media/sounds studies. The class will meet once a week for discussion of readings. In addition to readings there will be a several required film screenings or listening activities.
Recording Studio Sessions places students in weekly recording sessions with guest bands and music ensembles. The course aims to give students as much hands-on recording studio experience as possible, with the end goal of developing studio skills that lead to the production of professional-level audio materials. Students explore a wide range of studio experiences, from learning both digital and analog workflows to handling varied musical groups, so that, following the course, they may either pursue further study in upper-level sound engineering programs, find work in professional studios, or simply gain a more profound understanding of the studio environment for their own creative work.
Two semesters of prior coursework in Urdu for Heritage Speakers (Urdu for Heritage Speakers I and II) or one semester of Advanced Urdu or the instructor’s permission. This course is a literary course, with in-depth exposure to some of the finest works of classical and modern Urdu poetry i.e. genres of
ghazal
and
nazm
. This course is open for both undergraduates and graduates. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.
Prerequisites: Some knowledge of Research Methods, Statistics, and Social Psychology, plus Instructors Permission. Reviews and integrates current research on three important topics of social psychology: culture, motivation, and prosocial behavior. Discussions and readings will cover theoretical principles, methodological approaches, and the intersection of these three topics. Students will write a personal research proposal based on the theories presented during the seminar.
This course focuses on how to identify, evaluate, and capture business analytic opportunities that create value. The course covers basic analytic methods alongside case studies on organizations that successfully deployed these techniques. The first part of the course is on using data to develop insights and predictive capabilities with machine learning techniques. The second part focuses on the use of A/B testing, causal inference, ethics, and optimization to support decision-making.
This course is a combination of lectures, seminar participation, and group practicums which probes the possibility of a decolonial art research practice. This course introduces students to western approaches to politics and art through a sustained engagement with critical Indigenous and anticolonial theories of human relations to the more-than-human world. It is a mixture of lectures, class discussion, and individual practicums which lead to final projects that combine image and text.
This course will explore recent histories of post-independence India, focusing on the first three decades of independence (1947-1977) following the end of British colonial rule. Until rather recently, most histories of South Asia concluded with independence, casting, perhaps unconsciously, the end of British rule as the end of history in the region. However, in recent years, we have witnessed a boom of historical writing on post-independence India. In this class, we will analyze this emerging scholarship and focus on the themes of democracy and majoritarianism. We will read about the establishment of universal franchise in 1950s India, the writing and implementation of the constitution, and the country’s experiments with various economic plans. At the same time, we will study the Indian state’s often violent integration of regions originally outside Britain’s direct domain, including the princely states of Kashmir and Hyderabad, and the development of what scholars have described as new forms of colonialism in the region after 1947. Likewise
,
we will study the growth of majoritarian ideologies and the continued struggle against caste oppression, all while considering India’s place in the larger Cold War. Throughout the class, we will remain attendant to aesthetic developments in media and literature during this period. While the course focuses on India—or more specifically on various communities’ interactions with the Indian state—we will also study developments in Pakistan (and Bangladesh after 1971) and other neighboring states, recognizing that their shared histories did not end with Partition.