Tell us about your writing background.
After receiving my MFA in Nonfiction Writing (School of the Arts, ’09), I served as the assistant director of Columbia’s Writing Center. I left Columbia to work on my first book (We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America, PublicAffairs 2016).Since then, I’ve worked as a freelance writer (in print or online for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Esquire and The New Republic, among others) and as a writing consultant, including with the GSAS NSF grant workshop. Most recently, I established a new writing center at St. Stephen’s School, in Rome, Italy.

How has your experience prepared you to direct the Studio?
When I committed to becoming a professional writer, I decided that I would take advantage of any strategy I could find to avoid spending hours or days feeling miserably stuck. The techniques I collected—from journalists, biographers, novelists, rhetoricians, and teachers, among many others—proved very effective for me, and I’m eager to share them with Columbia’s dissertation writers!

How do you approach supporting writers?
When I’m working with any writer, at any level of experience, I’m always listening closely to what they want their writing to accomplish. Rather than starting with the draft and assuming I know how to help make it better, my focus is always on helping writers meet their own goals.

What one piece of advice would you give to dissertation writers?
If you’re feeling stuck or frustrated, don’t sit in front of a blank screen and berate yourself—that is a true waste of time. Instead, find gentler, lower-stakes ways to keep your ideas moving forward: talk to a friend; go for a walk and talk to yourself (it’s New York: who will notice?); record a series of voice memos in which you try to explain a complex concept in under a minute; write in longhand on scrap paper for a while; or draw a cartoon that captures a subtle relationship betweenschools of thought—anything that lets you relax a bit while you keep developing and articulating that next new idea.

What do you like most about the Studio’s physical space?
I love the fact that even though we’re so deep inside Lehman Library, we can still see the sky.

What programming do you have planned for the GSAS Writing Studio?
Now that we have a fantastic new staff of consultants, the Studio will be able to offer more one-day events like our recent Dissertation-Writing Sprint (for which the registration filled up almost instantly) and regularly scheduled dissertation writing groups. We are also planning two four-day Writing Retreats (January 14 to 17, and March 18 to 21); registration for these will open soon. Additionally, we’d like to develop short, focused workshops that could tackle specific writing tasks (for example, developing a prospectus or an abstract) and offer strategies to address common writing needs (for example, reorganizing a chapter for better flow of ideas).

What else should doctoral students to know about the GSAS Writing Studio?
The Studio exists to offer support to dissertation writers, in whatever form that may take. Writing a dissertation is already so demanding—no writer should feel like they don’t have the support they need as they develop their best ideas and present them for a reader. It’s an incredibly exciting resource, and we’re just getting started!

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Applied Mathematics
Tao, Yunzhe. Nonlocal Neumann volume-constrained problems and asymptotically compatible numerical approximations. Sponsor: Qiang Du.

Art History and Archaeology
Menon, Arathi. Hipped and gabled: Similitude and vicissitude in Kerala's sacred art and architecture. Sponsor: Vidya Dehejia.

Tolstoy, Irina. Camillo Trevisan's palace and villa culture on the island of Murano. Sponsor: Michael Cole.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Shoenfelt, Elizabeth. Interactions between glacial activity, dust-borne iron speciation, diatom productivity, and the biological pump. Sponsor: Benjamin Bostick.

Electrical Engineering
Kim, Doyun. Fully integrated digital low-drop-out regulator based on event-driven PI control. Sponsor: Mingoo Seok.

Mechanical Engineering
Bucher, Tizian. Laser forming of metal foam: Mechanisms, efficiency and prediction. Sponsor: Y. Lawrence Yao.

Neurobiology and Behavior
Wang, Yiliu. Order from disorder: Imposing structure on odor representations during learning. Sponsors: Laurence Abbott and Richard Axel.

Philosophy
Bice, Nathan. Thoughts about thoughts: The structure of Fregean propositions. Sponsor: Haim Gaifman.

TC / Mathematics Education
Dabkowska, Ewa. Polish mathematics education periodicals from 1930 to 1950. Sponsor: Alexander Karp.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

Computer Science
Chang, Oscar. Auto-generative networks.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Baek, Seung Hun. Characterization of oceanic and atmospheric influences on spatially widespread droughts over North America.

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Jensen, Johanna. Abiotic and biotic controls of above ground carbon storage in the forest tundra ecotone over seasonal and multi-decadal time scales.

Nursing
Voigt, Natalie. Physical activity among adults living with HIV/AIDS: Interventions, predictors, and measurement.

Urban Planning
Marcello, Elizabeth. The politics of public authorities: The case of the Empire State Development Corporation.

Where did you grow up? 
Switzerland, France, Kuwait, and Singapore.

What drew you to your field? 
I first became interested in the history of taxation in 2013 while working in the Paris archives on the 1945 war tax declarations of wealthy individuals. It was a stunning discovery, and drew my attention to the crucial issues of tax fairness and wealth and income inequality. I then began to read everything I could on the subject. Thomas Piketty’s 2001 book Top Incomes in France in the Twentieth Century: Inequality and Redistribution, 1901–1998made a great impression on me. That is also when I became very interested in French colonial history, and I soon decided to bring together these two domains of interest.

How would you explain your current research to someone outside of your field? 
My dissertation is a history of inequality and taxation in the French colonial empire between the 1920s and the 1950s. I study colonial tax regimes and the politics of taxation in the empire in order to understand how people and firms perceived and debated tax matters. Colonial seizure in the form of money or labor was done along racial lines, and generated inequalities that played no small role in the emergence of anti-colonial movements.

Other aspects of my research look at the early history of international corporate taxation, a topic very present in today’s conversations on global tax justice. I am particularly interested in how firms and individuals were already trying to evade taxes in the interwar years, especially in the colonies. The colonial genealogy of tax havens is a fascinating topic that is also discussed by the Canadian philosopher Alain Deneault and the historian Vanessa Ogle.

What is your favorite thing about being a student at Columbia GSAS?
I really appreciate the great intellectual stimulation that Columbia offers through the events organized on campus, as well as brilliant faculty and colleagues. I am particularly impressed with their passion and political acumen.

What resources or opportunities that Columbia provides have been most valuable to you?
Its libraries and online resources.

Who are your heroes in real life?
My partner, whose determination and intelligence have been a constant source of inspiration.

What music have you been listening to lately?
Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and Handel’s Water Music.

What is your favorite blog or website?
Taxjustice.net, the website of the Tax Justice Network and its great podcasts. Recently, I have also spent a lot of time on mediapart.fr.

Where is your favorite place to eat on or around campus?
At home!

Read about the recent achievements of GSAS students:

• Qingfan Jiang, PhD student in Historical Musicology, was awarded the American Musical Society’s Eugene K. Wolf Travel Grant to support her research trip to Portugal in Fall 2018.
• Latin American and Iberian Cultures doctoral candidate Santiago Acostawon the prestigious José Emilio Pacheco City and Nature Award for poetry related to nature, urban sustainability, socio-ecological harmony, and environmental conservation.
• Oral History MA student Nairy Abdelshafy has joined the Mi María Project, an oral history for social justice initiative in Puerto Rico. Selected narratives will be featured in a book published by Haymarket Books and Voice of Witness. Others will be shared in an international group exhibition on climate justice produced by the Humanities Action Lab.
• Krishna Anujan, PhD candidate in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B), received an Early Career Grant from the National Geographic Society. She will use this funding to work with the Department of Environment and Forest of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to determine whether planting evergreen seedlings in diverse neighborhoods can improve their regeneration even under adverse canopy conditions.
• Musa al-Gharbi, PhD student in Sociology, published an opinion piece in The Washington Post on why Democrats who viewed the US midterm elections as a referendum on President Trump should be alarmed.
• Heath Rojas, first-year doctoral student in History, won the Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for the best article published in a history department journal by an undergraduate. His winning article, titled “A Model of Revolutionary Regicide: The Role of Seventeenth-Century English History in the Trial of King Louis XVI,” appeared in Herodotus in Spring 2018.

Do you have news to share? Write to us at gsas-communications [at] columbia.edu.

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Applied Mathematics
Tao, Yunzhe. Nonlocal Neumann volume-constrained problems and asymptotically compatible numerical approximations. Sponsor: Qiang Du.

Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies
Groopman, Emily. Investigating the utility of exome sequencing for kidney disease. Sponsor: Ali Gharavi.

Ji, Brian. Quantifying spatiotemporal dynamics of human gut microbiota and metabolic limitations of cancer cell growth. Sponsor: Dennis Vitkup.

Johns, Nathan. Gene regulatory compatibility in bacteria: Consequences for evolution and synthetic biology. Sponsor: Harris Wang.

Yang, Jamie. Yeast survival under acute exposure to lethal stress. Sponsor: Saeed Tavazoie.

Chemical Engineering
Abdallah, Walaa. Engineering approaches to control activity and selectivity of enzymes for multi-step catalysis. Sponsor: Scott Banta.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Bartilson, Daniel. Model updating in structural dynamics: Advanced parametrization, optimal regularization, and symmetry considerations. Sponsor: Andrew Smyth.

Computer Science
Kowalczyk, Lucas. Attribute-based encryption for Boolean formulas. Sponsor: Allison Bishop.

Sinha, Kanad. Repurposing software defenses with specialized hardware. Sponsor: Steven Bellovin.

Earth and Environmental Engineering
Das, Subhabrata. Multiscale modeling and microfluidic study of particle-laden emulsions and foams. Sponsor: Ponisseril Somasundaran.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Howe, Michael. Improving estimates of seismic source parameters using surface-wave observations: Applications to earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions. Sponsor: Goran Ekstrom.

Electrical Engineering
Gidony, David. Embedded systems for photonic cognitive sensing. Sponsor: Keren Bergman.

Shekar, Siddharth. Design of custom CMOS amplifiers for nanoscale bio-interfaces. Sponsor: Kenneth Shepard.

French and Romance Philology
Azab, Adham. Cum dicit auctoritas: Quotational practice in two bilingual treatises on love by Gérard of Liège. Sponsor: Eliza Zingesser.

History
Marcus, David. In Socialism's twilight: Michael Walzer and the politics of the Long New Left. Sponsor: Casey Blake.

Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Abourahme, Nasser. Beneath the concrete: Camp, colony, Palestine. Sponsor: Joseph Massad.

Neurobiology and Behavior
Wang, Yiliu. Order from disorder: Imposing structure on odor representations during learning. Sponsors: Laurence Abbott and Richard Axel.

Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine
Moevus, Corentin. Single-molecule study of the effect of nucleosomes on DNA-based processes. Sponsor: Eric Greene.

Political Science
Strauss-Kahn, Camille. Outside in targeting aid within communities. Sponsor: Macartan Humphreys.

TC / Anthropology and Education
Dvorak, Alexander. Becoming an international student: What do adolescent immigrants do with a high school designed for them? Sponsor: Herve Varenne.

TC / Clinical Psychology
Connolly, Philippa. Smiling and snarling: Context sensitivity in emotional expression as a predictor of adjustment to spousal loss. Sponsor: George Bonanno.

Drapkin, Jennifer. Integrating yoga and self-psychology: An open-trial pilot study. Sponsor: Lisa J. Miller.

Love, Melanie. Sex, dishonesty, and psychotherapy. Sponsor: Barry Farber.

TC / Comparative and International Education
Salgado Hernández, Vania. Can a test measure teaching quality? Validity of Mexico's teacher entry examination after the 2013 education reform. Sponsor: Regina Cortina.

TC / Mathematics Education
Barba, Kimberly. Mindset over matter: How parent mathematical mindset relates to student mathematical experience. Sponsor: Nicholas Wasserman.

Kim, Hyunjung. Acculturation and development of Korean American parents and their perspectives on mathematics education. Sponsor: Alexander Karp.

Levin, Beatriz. Gender gap in mathematics achievement in Brazil: Teachers' implicit gender bias. Sponsor: Nicholas Wasserman.

TC / Measurement and Evaluation
Liu, Xiang. Three contributions to latent variable modeling. Sponsor: Lawrence DeCarlo.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

Applied Mathematics
Stein, Oded. Partial differential equations for geometric data processing.

Art History and Archaeology
Zinner, Valerie. Sumiyoshi Gukei and early modern Yamato-e.

Biomedical Engineering
Altoé, Mirella. Chemotherapy-induced changes in breast tissue metabolism for tumor monitoring and breast cancer risk assessment using diffuse optica tomography.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Gruenburg, Laura. Variability in Indonesian throughflow heat transport and its effect on the Indian Ocean.

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Petach, Anika. Nitrogen cycling in temperate hardwood forests: Individual scale theory, stand scale observations, and landscape scale abundance.

Siller, Stefanie. Epigenetic mediation of early developmental stress on the HPA axis.

English and Comparative Literature
Cádiz Bedini, Daniella. Crossing the Republic: Writing and translation across the Americas 1840-1930.

Engebretson, Jessica. Sovereign fictions: Self-determination and the literature of the Nigeria-Biafra War.

Gordon, Walter. "Oh awful power": Energy and modernity in African American literature.

Horn, Adam. Presumption and despair: The Cistercian tradition in medieval English literature.

Jamieson, David. Imagining disgust in the 18th Century.

Kelley, Elleza. At the edge.

Park, Yea Jung. Fictions of discernment in late medieval England.

Tripathi, Ameya. 1930s, English and Spanish War (20th Century British).

Windhauser, Kevin. Circulating knowledges: Literature and the idea of the library in Renaissance England.

Theatre
Rutigliano, Olivia. The performing detective: Investigation, audience, and acting in Victorian entertainment.

Where did you grow up? 
I grew up in South Florida, but East Tennessee is home.

What drew you to your field? 
I fell into it naturally. As an emergent field, American studies harmonizes research from several different perspectives that pertain to the issues I’m most concerned about. The field’s interdisciplinary scope allows me to engage knowledge produced in specific rural, local, and community-bound contexts alongside a broader inquiry into American life. I love it.

How would you explain your current research to someone outside of your field? 
For most, Native American identity is firmly rooted in kinship-oriented social structures, especially membership in a federally recognized tribe, band, or First Nation. Yet there remains a population of American citizens who have Native American ancestry belonging to communities with a longstanding sense of cultural separateness, but who do not have this federal recognition. I’m examining one such community, the Melungeons, and thinking about how they and other closely related groups are organizing themselves in the present while reckoning with entangled histories of displacement, eugenics, poverty, and racial liminality. This is particularly important to me as a Melungeon. Some of these communities have actually received limited recognition by state and federal governments. Others are negotiating their identity outside of the acknowledgment process. The interplay between these forms of collective self-description and different movements for self-determination in an increasingly globalized time raises many questions about race and ethnicity, indigeneity, and national belonging in the US and elsewhere.

What is your favorite thing about being a student at Columbia GSAS?
Being able to take classes taught by such esteemed faculty. My program also allowed me to cross-register at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), which gave me an opportunity to think about what I was studying at GSAS in more immediate terms of policy and practice.

What resources or opportunities that Columbia provides have been most valuable to you?
The sheer amount of love and support that I’ve received from the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) and from members of the Native American Council (NAC) have been invaluable.

Is there a common misconception about a topic in your field that you wish you could correct?
It’s a point that many have already made, but I’ve observed firsthand that direct-to-consumer DNA tests should be used cautiously as determiners of race and ethnicity. Although the language of DNA and blood is powerful and compelling, the presence (or absence) of certain genetic markers is not an adequate measure of one's belonging to a particular group, nor does it substitute for things like shared experience and community involvement. Some would say the tests don’t tell you anything reliable at all. I think we need to be more steadfast in our approach to DNA tests as their use becomes more widespread, because they have been shown to be useful tools in other areas—for example, in solving violent crimes or in proving close family relationships.

Who are your favorite writers?
This is hard! Joy Harjo, Anne Carson, and Maggie Nelson, but also Ibn Arabi, Rumi, and Hafiz. Right now I'm entranced by Hamza Yusuf's translation of and commentary on Imam Mawlud's Purification of the Heart.

Who in your field do you consider to be a role model?
I look up to quite a few people, including Malinda Maynor Lowery, Robert Jarvenpa, Kim TallBear, Chris Andersen, Tiya Miles, Kathleen Stewart, Lauret Sivoy, and Anna Tsing.

What music have you been listening to lately?
Tinariwen, Alabama Shakes, and Future Islands.

What is your favorite blog or website?
The New Centre for Research and Practice.

Find below several teaching opportunities outside academic departments that are available to GSAS doctoral students. This page will be updated on an ongoing basis with new opportunities.

Core Preceptorships

A preceptorship is a type of teaching fellowship awarded only by competitive application to students appointed to teach a section of a course in the Columbia College Core Curriculum (Literature Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, African Civilization, or Primary Texts of Latin American Civilization). This appointment is renewable for one year, but appointment to teach for a second year is contingent on satisfactory performance in the first year. Students may apply to be a preceptor only if they have or expect to have the MPhil by the May prior to being appointed as a preceptor, and if they will be in no more than their sixth year of registration during the first year of the preceptorship.

For additional information about the Core Curriculum, please see its website here.

GSAS Teaching Scholars Program

The GSAS Teaching Scholars Program is a professional and academic development opportunity that affords advanced doctoral students in Arts and Sciences programs the opportunity to design and teach a course in their area of expertise during the academic year in preparation for the job market.

Please see here for detailed information about the program, including eligibility requirements, compensation, application procedures, and more.

Graduate Kluge Mentor Fellowship

The Kluge Graduate Fellowship is designed to assist graduate students in their sixth or seventh year of graduate study who have demonstrated scholarly promise and have an interest in teaching and mentoring young scholars. The fellowship also offers graduate students the unique opportunity to participate in the continued development and implementation of an exciting, well-established program for undergraduates that focuses on academic excellence, leadership, global awareness, and civic engagement.

GSAS Writing Studio Consultants

GSAS Writing Studio consultants support the dissertation-writing work of their fellow doctoral students by facilitating peer groups and leading workshops, and meeting with writers in one-on-one draft conferences. Consultants receive formal training and work closely with the Director of the GSAS Writing Studio.

Find more information here.

Undergraduate Writing Program

Doctoral students in Humanities and Social Science departments may apply to teach University Writing, Columbia’s required first-year undergraduate writing course. This opportunity is intended for students who will be beyond their guaranteed-funding years (typically years one through five) during the teaching appointment. Arts and Sciences doctoral students selected will receive full GSAS Teaching Fellowships. Appointments are made for one or two years, depending on year of study.

More information may be found here.

Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equality (AFRE)

Each semester, Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equality recruits two part-time research fellows to assist with program development and/or research and data analysis. These positions are open to Humanities and Social Science doctoral candidates who are eligible for GSAS funding through the multi-year funding package awarded upon admission.

For more information, write to Michaela Pomells at m.pommells [at] atlanticfellows.org.

What is your current role?
I retired in 1998 as a senior engineer at Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

What are you working on now?
Since I retired, I have volunteered as the database manager at my church.

What drew you to your field?
Chemistry was always fascinating to me. I especially liked physical chemistry. After working in research for ten years and then for eight years in college teaching (during which I attained tenure), I wanted to work with more practical applications. So, I earned a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering at Lehigh University in 1980, and worked as an engineer for eighteen years.

What lessons from graduate school have you found useful in your professional life?
Learning is continuous in one’s life. Earning a PhD in Chemistry did not force me to remain in that field. I had deeply satisfying careers in both chemistry and chemical engineering.

What skill has unexpectedly helped you in your career?
My love for computation and computers has been an asset throughout school, my working days, and into my retirement.

What is your favorite memory from your graduate years?
The interaction with other graduate students and the broad exposure to so many research topics.

What are your passions outside of your work?
My husband and I love the outdoors. Skiing, cycling, gardening, knitting, sewing, and baking are some of my favorite things.

What is your advice for current GSAS students?
The time you spend in graduate school is only a small part of your adult life. You should keep learning and expanding your mind, and looking for new areas to work or think in. Don’t be limited by your formal education. The world is full of new developments and ideas.

What motivates you to give to Columbia?
Columbia was very good to me. During my three and a half years at the Graduate School, I was supported by fellowships: a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship awarded to me in my senior year, and two Columbia University fellowships. This support meant that I could devote all my time to my studies and research. Both my husband I worked for all of our adult lives, and we were blessed with good jobs, so now it is time to show our appreciation for the kindness shown to us. I have completed one fellowship in my husband's name (John) at Lehigh University, where he taught for thirty-five years, and now I am working toward a fellowship at Columbia University in my name.

Where did you grow up? 
Tehran, Iran.

What drew you to your field? 
The love of reading that was instilled in me from a very young age drew me to studying literature in college. But my investment in my particular field of study at the moment—comparative postcolonial studies—stems from a desire to make sense of the ways in which different nations have struggled to free themselves of foreign rule or intervention, and how accounts of these struggles have manifested in their cultural productions.

How would you explain your current research to someone outside of your field? 
I am studying Iranian and Caribbean literature from the 1960s to the 1980s in comparison with one another, investigating how certain writers responded to the political upheavals in their respective countries by creating literature that wasn’t considered “political.” But I argue that their writings were contributing to important conversations about what it meant to be free, and that—in their own ways—they were transforming the limited and limiting category of “political literature.”

What is your favorite thing about being a student at Columbia GSAS?
The community. I’ve met people here who have become some of my most valued confidants, and the fact that they’re in different disciplines and hail from all over the world has helped me to gain a much richer perspective on life. This includes the extraordinary undergraduate community, as well; having the opportunity to teach them, and to cultivate meaningful mentoring relationships in the process, has made my time here infinitely more meaningful and valuable.

What resources or opportunities that Columbia provides have been most valuable to you?
I’ve really appreciated the variety of teaching opportunities available to graduate students. Being able to teach in the Core Curriculum, both as a University Writing instructor and a Literature Humanities Preceptor, has been an invaluable experience. We receive exceptional pedagogical support, and become an integral part of the undergraduate education at Columbia, which is both great training and very fulfilling in terms of the work that we do as graduate students.

The Graduate Student Internship Program in Primary Sources was another incredible opportunity. The hours that I spent in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, processing the archival collections that I was working on, are among some of the best that I have spent on this campus. Also, I remember during our orientation for the internship, we were shown some 4,000-year-old tablets, and the awesome Rare Books Librarian Jane Siege allowed us to examine them closely. It isn’t every day that you get to hold in your hand an ancient artifact replete with human history!

Who are your favorite writers?
That’s an impossible question to answer for someone who studies literature for a living! But some of my favorites are Sohrab Sepehri, Toni Morrison, Zoya Pirzad, Jorge Luis Borges, Claudia Rankine, and Hafez.

Who is your hero of fiction?
Jane Villanueva, played by the inimitable Gina Rodriguez, in Jane the Virgin.

Who are your heroes in real life?
My mother and father. They have dealt with a lot of adversity, but they have never stopped fighting for their children or for what’s right. They have been—and continue to be—extraordinary role models and parents.

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A horse.

What music have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been focusing on my dissertation lately, so mostly it has been classical music. It calms me and helps me to concentrate. I’ve also recently discovered Michael Kinawuka, and have been listening obsessively to a few of his songs.

What is your favorite blog or website?
For better or worse, NYTimes.com. And BuzzFeed Quizzes—because it’s important to take a break from reality every once in a while and figure out what type of candy you are.

Where is your favorite place to eat on/around campus?
Subs Conscious has the best sandwiches!