PROJECT FEED

The current efforts on drug development have been mostly focused on targeting a small fraction of the human proteome with good pharmacological tractability (e.g., kinases). It has been estimated, however, that approximately 90% of human proteins (e.g., transcription factors, adaptors and intrinsically disordered proteins) have not been effectively targeted by small-molecule drugs, because, for example, they lack traditionally defined binding pockets. Students will be involved in the analyses of novel covalent protein modifications and the development of chemoproteomic technologies that potentially will revolutionize the principle of drug development by pushing the boundaries of the druggable proteome. Furthermore, students will have a chance to work with experts on projects related to AI and computational biology to rapidly identify novel druggable targets in the human proteome.

Project Goal: To increase public awareness, understanding, and engagement with the latest research findings from the Columbia Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center and Clinical Trials Network by translating complex scientific articles into accessible and compelling summaries for social media platforms and website content. This project seeks an undergraduate student to identify key findings, simplify scientific jargon, and craft engaging content tailored for public understanding across various platforms

By discussing some of the most challenging literature there is, we reflect on profound philosophical questions like the role of love and suffering in life and the nature of justice and wisdom.

DitecT (Data and innovative technology-driven Transportation) focuses on transportation systems modeling, analysis, and simulation. We are currently focused on pioneering the development of digital twins for urban transportation management, leveraging cyber-physical systems technology, GenAI, and game theory.

Magnetic confinement fusion systems rely on the confinement of the charged fusion products, the alpha particles, for a sufficiently long time that they can deposit their heat in the hot plasma bulk. One magnetic confinement concept, the stellarator, has historically suffered from poor confinement of alpha particles. Numerical optimization algorithms have recently demonstrated the ability to obtain stellarator magnetic fields that could be candidates for a fusion energy device. This project focuses on improvements in the numerical integration schemes used for evolving the trajectories of alpha particles in a three-dimensional fusion system, enabling more efficient design and modeling of these devices. The student will perform modification of an existing open-source C++ and python library to improve the accuracy and performance of the integration routines. This will be achieved through application of symplectic algorithms, improved parallelism, and other code optimization techniques. The student must have a strong computing background, with preference for experience in high-performance computing and scientific computing.

Our research seeks to understand how normal mechanisms that control transcriptional regulation and cellular differentiation are coopted in cancer. We address these broad questions in our research focused on genitourinary cancers using mechanism-based studies, analyses of genetically-engineered mouse models (GEMMs), and state-of-the-art systems biology approaches. In our studies on prostate cancer, we have developed an extensive series of GEMMs that represent the full spectrum of prostate cancer phenotypes, ranging from pre-invasive to invasive cancer, including castration-resistance, neuroendocrine differentiation, and metastasis. Capitalizing on these GEMMs, we have generated genome-wide transcriptional regulatory networks to pursue cross-species computational analyses of mouse and human prostate cancer, which have led to the identification of master regulators of cancer progression, biomarkers of disease outcome, regulators of drug response and resistance, and drivers of metastasis. In our studies of bladder cancer, we have developed novel approaches to target gene recombination specifically to bladder urothelium, which have led to the generation of a new series of mouse models of muscle invasive bladder cancer as well as metastatic disease. These have enabled co-clinical trials that are influencing the treatment of patients with high-risk bladder cancer.

Cross-Race Casting and Racial Passing: A continuation of an ongoing summer project in histories of silent and sound cinema in development as a website on the model of Columbia Libraries humanities databases. in order to illustrate the careers of an unusual range of actors and actresses who transformed themselves into a range of racial types in the first decades of American cinema. Central to the project is the documentation of the life and film career of African American Noble M. Johnson (1907 – 1948). Johnson was a remarkable talent who “put on and took off” a wide range of ethnicities as a character actor but who also passed as white in the last 30 years of his life. Before Johnson, who spans the silent and the sound eras, there were actors and actresses such as Japanese-American Tsuru Aoki who took the part of a native American in early Westerns. The project is broadly interested in the questions of genre and star image theory as well as the internationalization of the film industry. Responsibilities: primary photographic research as well as online image collection, image tagging (dating, credits) and overview writing.

The AWS DeepRacer, a fully autonomous 1/18th scale race car powered by an Intel Atom Processor, is designed to deploy advanced control algorithms including reinforcement learning, model predictive control, and imitation learning. Our team has access to several AWS DeepRacers, and we are dedicated to utilizing these vehicles to build a realistic model of an urban intersection. The primary goal of this project is to design and implement a 1/18th scale urban intersection, equipped with traffic lights and road surface markings. We plan to develop an advanced sensing system that employs the DeepRacer's built-in sensors or external cameras to accurately monitor each vehicle's location and movement within the model. Furthermore, we aim to design a comprehensive control system that manages the vehicles' operations using real-world data, ensuring a genuine and dynamic display of autonomous vehicle technology. Task: Design and construct a detailed 1/18th scale model of an urban intersection, featuring key elements such as traffic lights and road markings. Develop and integrate a sensing system to observe and track the position of each AWS DeepRacer in the model environment, using the vehicle's onboard sensors or external camera systems as necessary. Create a sophisticated control system capable of directing the autonomous vehicles based on the gathered data, aiming to replicate realistic urban traffic conditions.

The project aims to uncover the dynamic effects of electricity shortages on Indian manufacturing. Since 2010, firms have moved away from self-generation of electricity while reliance on the electricity grid has increased dramatically. This is likely to have an impact on how issues of grid reliability, such as power blackouts, intermittency, etc affect production. The effect would be moderated by firms’ insurance mechanisms to outages, such as availability of self-generation, but such mechanisms require capital and are costly. This project, hence 1) aims to undercover how the industry’s sensitivity of electricity supply has changed over the years, and 2) models self-generation adoption to understand the steady state effects on firm size, growth and capital. Major work would be towards building a dataset for the Indian electricity sector from 2006 – Present. The data exists publicly as pdf/xls files on the government websites. This needs to be downloaded, or to be more efficient, scraped. Then, the RA would work on cleaning, processing and aggregating the datasets as consistent panels.

This project will explore the impact of losing local post offices on Irish communities’ short and long-term social capital development. In early 20th-century Ireland, post offices played a vital role in the identity of Irish communities. Postmasters and postmistresses served as founts of local knowledge, registered pensions, and transferred information between communities. The Post Office’s significance was acknowledged: “…the Department [Post Office] in all its operations is more closely connected with the interests, accommodations, and personal feelings of every class of his Majesty’s subjects, than any other branch of the state” (Papers relating to the Post Office 1834, p. 9, H.C. 1834 [48] xlix, 497). In 1921, an international border partitioned Ireland into two self-governing polities. This border bifurcated existing municipal boundaries, including those of post offices. Several border communities suddenly found themselves without their longstanding postal employees. Informally, some report feeling the repercussions of this loss today as a weakened sense of community identity.

Ferroptosis is a unique form of regulated cell death closely linked to lipid metabolism. Our preliminary data suggest that B-cell lymphomas are particularly sensitive to ferroptosis triggered by saturated fatty acids (SFAs). To expand upon these findings, we aim to analyze large-scale clinical datasets, such as UK Biobank and European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), and conduct prospective studies to investigate potential associations between dietary intake of SFAs and B-cell lymphomas incidence. Mentored Research Experience: This experience is ideal for a self-motivated undergraduate with a strong interest in applying statistical and computational skills to real-world biomedical questions. The student will take an active role in analyzing large epidemiological datasets to explore associations between dietary SFA intake and B-cell lymphoma risk. With guidance from faculty in the Statistics Department and a PhD student in the Stockwell lab, the student will participate in the research project, formulating hypotheses, performing statistical analyses, and interpreting findings. We’re especially looking for someone who’s excited to learn and able to make progress independently on well-defined tasks. Research Activities: Preprocess and analyze large-scale public datasets Conduct statistical analyses Generate summary tables and figures for interpretation Attend regular check-ins to discuss results and progress Learning Outcomes: Hands-on research experience working with biomedical datasets Exposure to interdisciplinary research at the intersection of statistics, biology, and medicine Potential for authorship on future publications or presentations

We have an exciting opportunity for an undergraduate researcher to join our lab. Under the supervision of the PI, students will be responsible for carrying out fully planned experiments on the role of cell division regulators and pleiotropic action of insulin. Students will use cell line, mouse genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biological methods including molecular cloning, tissue culture, immunostaining, and western blot analysis. In addition, students will have a chance to work with experts on AI-based protein design and Cryo-EM experts. Duties will include keeping records of experimental results, setting up and maintaining equipment including microscopes according to the guidelines provided by the laboratory and providing experimental support for ongoing projects.

This project explores how disparities in voters’ exposure to information through social networks impacts how well the government serves different communities (in the US). I examine how the level of alignment between social networks and congressional boundaries impacts (1) how familiar voters are with their congressional representatives, (2) representatives’ effort, and (3) federal funding.

AI for Computer Graphics Physics-based Material Simulation for Real-time Rendering, Animation and Gaming Seeking students with experience in graphics and/or physics and machine learning for projects focused on physics-based photorealistic material simulation for computer graphics.

The Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab does research in the design of 3D and 2D user interfaces, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and mobile and wearable systems, for people interacting individually and together, indoors and outdoors. We use a range of displays and devices: head-worn, hand-held, and table-top, including Varjo XR-3, HoloLens 2, and Magic Leap 2, in addition to consumer headsets such as Meta Quest 3. Multidisciplinary projects potentially involve working with faculty and students in other schools and departments, from medicine and dentistry to earth and environmental sciences and social work.

Students will primarily be involved in developing new architectures and improving robustness. In addition you will evaluate these architectures in real health data which may require preprocessing. Typically all of this will be a collaboration with other members in my group. We recommend reaching if you take initiative and have a learn whatever is necessary because of the highly interdisciplinary nature of our projects.

The overarching goal of the study is to identify the barriers and facilitators to the utilization of genetic testing in nephrology. The study plan is to use surveys, interviews and focus-groups to identify those and develop an intervention tailored to the needs of nephrologists and their patients. Depending on the time at which the student will join and their interest, they help with the development of the study, participants' enrollment, data analysis, and writing.

The Gaudet lab is a newly established group that seeks to understand how tissues coordinate with the immune system to defend against pathogens. These studies are critical to understand the molecular basis of immunity at sites of infection and define the potentially devastating consequences of their failure during disease. The pathways discovered will support the design of next generation of antibiotics and vaccines that target specific organ systems rather than the immune system as a whole. Student responsibilities include: Performing molecular biology experiments (multiplexed cloning, PCR etc.); Performing cell culture experiments (transfections, microscopy, flow cytometry, western blotting); maintenance of lab stocks/quality control; Computational analysis of large data sets; Preparing solutions and assisting with general lab maintenance.

Students will help design a novel lightweight eBPF-based runtime for fleets of multi-tenant, heterogeneous and intermittently-connected satellites. The runtime will run on the FPrime flight software framework. Qualifications: Required: - Experience with C or C++ Preferred: - Taken operating systems - Previous experience with flight software or ground data systems

Traditionally, stellarator design has proceeded in two stages. In the first stage, the shape of the plasma boundary is optimized for beneficial physics properties, while in the second stage, magnets are designed to produce the desired boundary. New methods enable these two stages to be combined, allowing for engineering constraints of the magnets to be addressed earlier in the stellarator design process. This project will apply these new methods to the design of new experiments in the Columbia Plasma Laboratory. These new devices will explore the physics of "hidden symmetries" in the magnetic field and their benefits for confinement. The student will perform numerical shape optimization using existing open-source python libraries. Post-processing of the resulting magnet system will be performed to understand the impacts of the optimization on confinement, engineering constraints, and manufacturing tolerances. The student must have a strong computing background, with preference for experience in high-performance computing and scientific computing.