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.
2021
Nicole Melso
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona
Daniel DeFelippis
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Paris-Saclay, France
Mihir Kulkarni
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toledo, OH
Julia Blue Bird
Jansky fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM
2020
Kirsten Blancato
Data Scientist, Humankind Investments
Emily Sandford
Postdoctoral Fellow, Cavendish Astrophysics, Cambridge
Alex Teachey
Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Taiwan
Jemma Wolcott-Green
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, UCSB
Jose Zorrilla
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton
Andrea Derdzinski
Tomalla Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich
2019
Andrew Emerick
Joint Carnegie/Caltech Fellowship
2018
Jingjing Chen
Data Scientist, Primer 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
NASA Hubble Fellow, New York University
Yong Zheng
Miller Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley
2017
Maria Charisi
NANOGrav Postdoctoral Fellow, Caltech
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
Head of Education & Public Outreach, Rubin Observatory
Daniel D'Orazio
Assistant Professor, Niels Bohr Institute
Graham Kanarek
Staff Scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute
Jia Liu
Associate Professor, Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo
Adrian Price-Whelan
Associate Research Scientist, CCA, Flatiron Institute
Jennifer Weston
Contractor for US Naval Observatory, Federated IT
2015
Jeff Andrews
Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University
Ximena Fernández
Head Data Scientist, Oversight and Investigations, New York City Council
Munier Salem
Data Scientist, Coursera
2014
Lia Corrales
Professor, University of Michigan
Erika Hamden
Assistant 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
Customer Success Engineer, Starburst Data
Destry Saul
Image Processing Engineer, BlackSky
Christine Simpson
McCormick Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Chicago
Maureen Teyssier
Chief Data Officer, Link Logistics Real Estate
2012
Jana Grcevich
Astronomy Outreach Coordinator, Columbia University
Cameron Hummels
Postdoctoral Fellow, Caltech
Colin McNally
Postdoctoral Researcher, Queen Mary, University of London
Kyle Parfrey
Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin
Andreas Svedin
Data Scientist, H&M, Stockholm
2011
Robert Dumoulin
Senior Director of Data Science, Headspace Health
Kathryn Krekel
Emmy Noether group leader, Heidelberg University
Takamitsu Tanaka
Head of Data; Managing Director, Roc360
Nithya Thyagarajan
Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Space and Astronomy
Neil Zimmerman
Research Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
2010
Emily Rauscher
Associate Professor, University of Michigan
Stephanie Tonnesen
Associate Research Scientist, CCA, Flatiron Institute
Sarah Tuttle
Assistant Professor, University of Washington
2009
Antara Basu-Zych
Associate Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center & University of Maryland
Jennifer Donovan Meyer
Research Professor, University of Virginia
Sasha Hinkley
Associate Professor, University of Exeter
Roban Kramer
Machine Learning Engineer, Stripe
Ian McGreer
Assistant Astronomer, University of Arizona
Maria Pereira
Astronomy Faculty, Pima Community College
2008
Tony Mroczkowski
Astronomer, European Southern Observatory
Stephen Muchovej
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Zoom
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
Associate Professor, University of Maryland
Eilat Glikman
Associate Professor, Middlebury College
Yuexing Li
Associate Professor, Penn State University