Juniors & Seniors

Cathy is currently a Graduate Research Assistant in the Lightwave Research Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Keren Bergman, with a research interest in optical interconnects for High Performance Computing and Datacenter networks.

Meghan Shan, a 2011 B.S. from the biomedical engineering department, gives advice to incoming freshmen and discusses her research activities in the Biomaterials and Interface Tissue Engineering Laboratory (BITEL), under the direction of Professor Helen Lu.

Teferra received a Ph.D. from the department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics. He earned his B.S. at Columbia, went to U.C. Berkeley for his Masters, worked in the industry, and then came back to Columbia to pursue his Ph.D.. His advisor is Professor George Deodatis and his primary research is in the field of stocastic computational mechanics.

Moffat worked on innovative tissue engineering projects using stratified layers of polymers and ceramics to reconnect tendons and ligaments to bones. She conducted her research in the Biomaterial and Interface Tissue Engineering Laboratory (BITEL) under the guidance of Professor Helen Lu. In 2008 she won the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine's Young Investigator Award, and was a recipient of an NSF GK-12 Graduate Teaching Fellowship.

Tristan Naumann was interviewed in the spring of 2007, at the end of his sophomore year, shortly after declaring his major in Computer Science. His commitment to his studies and extra-curricular activities is not uncommon for the 300+ students admitted to Columbia's School of Engineering each year

Megan deBettencourt started participating in faculty research projects at Columbia since her second year at SEAS. Her senior year, she worked on neuroscience research projects with Biomedical Engineering Professor Paul Sajda in his Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing (LIINC).

Hilary Schneidmiller, a recent graduate of the Electrical Engineering Department, came to SEAS as a 3/2 Combined Plan student from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., where she studied Liberal Arts. She has begun a career in microprocessor design.

SEAS 2012 graduate Dmitriy Timerman worked with Professor Elizabeth Hillman in her Laboratory for Functional Optical Imaging. Timerman's research attempts to understand the function of so-called resting state networks; essentially, she tries to understand what is going on in the brain when a person is at rest.

Ranojoy Bose worked with Professor Chee Wei Wong in the Optical Nanostructures Laboratory. Here, he describes a nanofabrication project to achieve enhanced lasing on a nano-chip.

Amy Betz, a PhD. candidate in Mechanical Engineering, works with Professor Daniel Attinger in the Laboratory for Microscale Transport Phenomena. Her research focuses on cooling for electronic systems. She discusses her experiences as a female scientist and explains why encouraging gender diversity is so important in engineering.

As a graduate student in the computer science department, Sean worked on a project that developed interfaces that aided botanists in the rapid identification of plant species in the field. This project is an ongoing collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and other universities engaged in biodiversity research.

Kim came to Columbia's engineering school in 2007. She works in Dr. Helen Lu's tissue engineering lab with Kristin Moffat. She is a active member of CAVA (Columbia's volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians) and takes jazz piano lessons at Teacher's College. Her wide-ranging interests are not uncommon amongst the SEAS student body - many SEAS students are active in extra-curricular organizations throughout the school and local communities.

Oliver Cossairt was recently selected for a NSF Graduate Fellowship to further his work on intelligent displays, which are new types of visualization systems that sense and react to their physical environment.

Bridges, of Tacoma, Wash., recently graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. She was inspired to become an astronaut by the movie industry and by one of the worst disasters in the history of the U.S. space program. "At six years old, despite the unfortunate 1986 Challenger explosion, I became fascinated with space and astronomy," says Bridges.

Prish discusses how his minor in Entrepreneurship has broadened his skills and understanding of engineering and its universal applications. He also talks about his experience in the Integrated BS/MS Program in Electrical Engineering.

Nanne is a competitive rower who, with the help of understanding professors, has found a balance between his training and competition schedule and his studies. He is a PhD candidate working with Chemical Engineering Professor Edward Leonard, and has been researching fluid dynamics to make kidney dialysis machines more efficient and economical. The PhD program in Chemical Engineering is relatively small, allowing Nanne to get a highly-personalized education. The program also provides opportunities for interdisciplinary research with the Columbia University Medical Center.

Earth & Environmental Engineering Ph.D. candidate Matt Basinger explains his collaborative research project exploring alternative fuel sources for villages in sub-Saharan Africa. This research project is in conjunction with the Earth Institute at Columbia, and is working on goals put forth by the Millennium Villages Project of the United Nations to assist developing countries around the world. Project is funded in part by the Three Loaves Fund, Marc Mehl and Darren Manelski

Sam Krevor discusses how his research with Professor Lockner on sustainable development projects has lead to summer jobs where he put his education to use in the public and private sectors.

Luis joined Google in 2007 after completing his Masters in Computer Science at Columbia University. He started as a member of Google's New York Search Quality team where he worked on ways of improving search results using structured data embedded in web pages. He recently moved to California to join the Systems Infrastructure team where he is working on improving the systems that keep Google's programs up and running.

What's it like to be a Columbia Engineering student? Angel Say, a junior mechanical engineering major interested in robotics, has much to say on the topic.

Alisha Goldstein, an Earth & Environmental Engineering major, discusses the unique opportunities at Columbia for study abroad that have given her future goals an international perspective.

Kukanov is now in his fifth year at Columbia Engineering, after finishing his undergraduate work at Moscow State University in Russia. He worked his way through school working in a bank, which attracted him to the field of operations research. He has found that the high quality professors here, as well as the wide diversity among students, have enabled him to fit in quickly on campus and in New York City.