Former Grad Students

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.

 

2023

Yuxi (Lucy) Lu
Postdoc, American Museum of Natural History

Matthew Abruzzo
Postdoctoral Associate, Univ of Pittsburgh

Tianhuan (Brian) Lu
Quant Researcher

Aaron Tran
Postdoc, Physics, UW Madison

2022

Rose Gibson
Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA

Tomer Yavetz
Astrophysicist, Institute for Advanced Study

Adam J. Wheeler
Postdoctoral Researcher, Ohio State University

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 Researcher, Université Paris-Saclay, France

Mihir Kulkarni
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toledo, OH

Moiya McTier
Astrophysicist & Folklorist

Julia Blue Bird
Jansky Fellow, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM

2020

Kirsten Blancato
Manager, Data Integration, Alliant

Emily Sandford
Research Fellow, Cambridge

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

Zephyr Penoyre

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
Data Visualization Engineer, Alder Planetarium

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