R. A. Korb holds a Ph. D., Germanic Literature (University of Pittsburgh, 1988) and has been teaching at Columbia since 1994. As Senior Lecturer and German Language Program Director, he specializes in pedagogy and teacher training, regularly offering elementary, intermediate, and advanced German courses for undergraduates. Since 1997 he has taught a popular course on Berlin, developing video and web materials entitled "Berlin-Berlin."

He is author of the Jannach's German for Reading Knowledge (Heinle/Cengage, 2009).