At Columbia over the last twenty years, the median time to degree has been 6 years, with a range of 4 to 8; only three students have taken seven years or more. There is, however, no strict time limit — the only criterion for continued support is that the student be making satisfactory progress toward the degree.
Since their inception over 30 years ago years, 17 of our graduates have won Hubble, Einstein, and Sagan Fellowships and three have won Jansky Fellowships; two have won the annual Trumpler Award for the Outstanding Dissertation by a Student in North America. Others have gone on to postdoctoral fellowships at institutions such as Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, SAO, Washington, and Munich. Twenty-eight now hold faculty positions. Over the past decade 58% of our PhDs were awarded to women.
2024
Jorge Cortés
Postdoc, UCSC/Lick Observatory
Navin Sridhar
Postdoc, Stanford
2023
Yuxi (Lucy) Lu
Postdoc, Ohio State
Matthew Abruzzo
Postdoctoral Associate, Univ of Pittsburgh
Tianhuan (Brian) Lu
Quant Researcher, Samsung Research America
Aaron Tran
Postdoc, Physics, UW Madison
2022
Rose Gibson
Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA
Tomer Yavetz
Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Adam J. Wheeler
Research Fellow, Flatiron Institute
2021
Aliya Babul
CTO, ConcussionRx & Venture Partner, Global Millennial Capital
Steven Mohammed
Data Scientist
Nicole Melso
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
Tiffany Jansen
Senior Data Scientist, Rune Labs
Adrian Lucy
Postdoctoral Fellow, Space Telescope Science Institute
Daniel DeFelippis
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
Mihir Kulkarni
Postdoctoral Researcher, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Moiya McTier
Astrophysicist & Folklorist
Julia Blue Bird
Jansky Fellow, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM
2020
Kirsten Blancato
Manager, Data Integration, Alliant
Emily Sandford
Postdoc, Leiden University
Alex Teachey
Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taiwan
Jemma Wolcott-Green
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, UCSB
José Zorrilla
Physics Instructor, Phillips Academy Andover
Andrea Derdzinski
EMIT Postdoctoral Fellow, Fisk University and Vanderbilt University
2019
Andrew Emerick
Pasadena Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
2018
Jingjing Chen
Machine Learning Research Engineer, Scale AI
Ricardo Fernandez
Senior Data Scientist, Bill.com
Aleksey Generozov
Postdoctoral Researcher, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
David Hendel
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto
Sarah Pearson
Assistant Professor, Niels Bohr Institute
Yong Zheng
Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2017
Maria Charisi
Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt Initiative for Data-intensive Astrophysics (VIDA)
Susan Clark
Assistant Professor of Physics, Stanford University
Stephanie Douglas
Assistant Professor, Lafayette College
Miao Li
Tenure-track Research Professor, Zhejiang University
2016
Lauren Corlies
Public Education Manager, Lick Observatory
Daniel D'Orazio
Assistant Professor, Niels Bohr Institute
Graham Kanarek
Staff Scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute
Jia Liu
Director, Center for Data-Driven Discovery, Kavli IPMU
Adrian Price-Whelan
Associate Research Scientist, CCA, Flatiron Institute
Jennifer Weston
Contractor for US Naval Observatory, Federated IT
2015
Jeff Andrews
Assistant Professor, University of Florida
Ximena Fernández
Senior Director, Data Management and Analysis, Empire State Development
Munier Salem
Data Scientist, Stripe
2014
Lia Corrales
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
Erika Hamden
Associate Professor, University of Arizona
Jenna Lemonias
Executive Director, Data Science Team, The Atlantic
Yuan Li
Assistant Professor of Physics, University of North Texas
Joshua (Schroeder) Tan
Assistant Professor, LaGuardia Community College
2013
Joo Heon Yoon
Sr. Machine Learning Engineer, AppFolio, Inc.
Duane Lee
Data Scientist, Audacy, Inc.
Destry Saul
Image Processing Engineer, BlackSky
Christine Simpson
Assistant Computational Scientist, Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
Maureen Teyssier
Chief Data Officer, Link Logistics Real Estate
2012
Jana Grcevich
Data Scientist/Astronomer/Writer
Cameron Hummels
Research Scientist, Caltech
Colin McNally
Postdoctoral Researcher, Queen Mary, University of London
Kyle Parfrey
Research Physicist, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Andreas Svedin
Information Architect, H&M Group, Stockholm
2011
Robert Dumoulin
Senior VP, Tech, Paramount+
Kathryn Krekel
Emmy Noether group leader, Heidelberg University
Takamitsu Tanaka
Head of Data; Managing Director, Roc360
Nithya Thyagarajan
Senior Research Scientist, Astronomy and Space Science, CSIRO, Perth, Australia
Neil Zimmerman
Research Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
2010
Emily Rauscher
Associate Professor, University of Michigan
Stephanie Tonnesen
Research Scientist, CCA, Flatiron Institute
Sarah Tuttle
Associate Professor, University of Washington
2009
Antara Basu-Zych
Research Scientist, NASA HEASARC
Jennifer Donovan Meyer
Science staff, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Sasha Hinkley
Associate Professor, University of Exeter
Roban Kramer
Staff Data Scientist, AI Ethics team, Indeed
Ian McGreer
Assistant Astronomer, University of Arizona
Maria Pereira
Astronomy Faculty, Pima Community College
2008
Tony Mroczkowski
Astronomer, European Southern Observatory
Stephen Muchovej
Machine Learning, Apella
Pietro Reviglio
Artist
David Spiegel
Data Scientist, Stitch Fix
2007
Benjamin Johnson
Research Associate, CFA, Harvard & Smithsonian
Andreea Petric
Associate Scientist, STScI
Michel Zamojski
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai
2006
Aeree Chung
Professor, Yonsei University
Moo Kwang (Ryan) Joung
CEO, Scapeflow, Inc
Andrei Mesinger
Associate Professor, Scuola Normale Superiore
2005
Mark Dijkstra
Data Scientist, Stitch Fix
Suvi Gezari
Chair, Senior Science Staff Executive Committee, STScI
Eilat Glikman
Associate Professor, Middlebury College
Yuexing Li
Associate Professor, Penn State University