3. Columbia in the World Today

Research for the World

In the western part of the Dakhleh Oasis, far west of the Nile Valley in Upper Egypt, archaeologists and classicists from Columbia, as well as our experts in history, art history, and Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, are confident they will uncover the ancient town of Trimithis, a Roman garrison in late antiquity and a city in its own right by the fourth century. The discovery of wall paintings, cemeteries, and fifth-century surface pottery has led to a multidisciplinary investigation of the Graeco-Roman town now called Amheida. The excavation is expected to answer critical questions about urban development in Egypt, but it will do even more: every excavation produces surprises that alter our perception of the past.

The search for Trimithis is but one of hundreds of major investigations being conducted by Columbia scientists and scholars all over the world--from the ocean floor, where the University's earth scientists aboard our research vessel, Maurice Ewing, probe the past and gain knowledge of the future; to outer space, where a powerful Columbia-conceived gamma ray detector investigates distant radiation; to the interior of Rwanda, where Dr. Richard Neugebauer '68 '76GSAS '79PH is conducting a national mental health survey, in collaboration with the Rwanda Ministry of Health, to evaluate psychosocial programs for trauma.

Ever since, and even before, engineering professor Edwin Armstrong invented the FM radio in the basement of Philosophy Hall, Columbians have been making discoveries of enormous importance to the world population. That tradition has continued, from the discovery of Vitamin Bl and the first medical use of the laser to, in recent years, the isolation of the causal gene for Huntington's disease. Just as important, Columbia not only serves millions of people throughout the world with the results of its research, but the process of research has become more and more international.

Dr. Herbert Pardes, vice president for Health Sciences, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and the Lawrence C. Kolb Professor of Psychiatry, noted that P&S faculty conduct major research with colleagues in Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mali, Mexico, Slovakia, Switzerland, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and other countries, now to include Turkey. Last year the Trustees approved a new affiliation agreement between Columbia and the American Hospital of Istanbul, linking P&S, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Cornell University's Joan and Stanford I. Weill Medical College. In addition to faculty exchange and collaborations in research, the alliance provides for exchange programs of nurses, medical students, other students and administrators, and for collaborations in medical education and patient care.

In southern Africa, a focal point of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, a group of health professionals recently returned to their home countries to conduct research and train others in HIV prevention and AIDS research. They had completed graduate and postdoctoral training at the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health. The Mailman School also launched a new two-and-a-half-year HIV study in Uganda.

Public health researchers have been studying the outcomes of cardiovascular disease management for infants in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States, compared to adults in their seventies in the same countries.

And a team of investigators from the Mailman School's Center for Population and Family Health, accompanied by members of Physicians for Human Rights, traveled to thirty refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania to survey human rights abuses and sexual violence against Albanian Kosovar refugees. A long-term study by Mailman School faculty of children in two Kosovar towns was concluded last year. The study demonstrated a wide range of adverse health effects from environmental lead exposure.

In the Dominican Republic, Public Health faculty, who provide reproductive health services to the residents of Washington Heights, primarily Dominican, met with the leading family planning agency, Profamilia, to develop a blueprint for future projects.

In Taiwan, a successful Dental School program of scholarly exchange and academic collaboration, overseen by Columbia's senior, forward-looking dean, Dr. Allan J. Formicola, linked our School of Dental and Oral Surgery with the National Taiwan University School of Dentistry.

In Nicaragua, Richard M. Garfield '80 '85 '86PH, the Henrik Bendixen Professor of Clinical International Nursing, finished his sixth year developing information systems for child survival and malaria control programs for the Ministry of Health.

In Israel, a joint program was negotiated last year with Hebrew University to give visiting scholars from our School of Social Work the opportunity to collaborate with their counterparts in Israel.

In Brazil, our Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) is conducting joint research with the State of São Paulo, helping to establish conservation areas and design education programs about conservation issues.

In Argentina, the Columbia Earth Institute, in cooperation with four Argentine universities, devised an agreement for scholars to collaborate in the pursuit of sustainable economic development, focusing global resources on local problems and opportunities.

In Japan, the Earth Institute developed a cooperative arrangement with the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center to collaborate on basic and applied research projects in ocean science and technology.

Last spring in Bamako, Mali, the first training seminar was held for a research program on the effect of weather pattern shifts associated with global climate patterns on the transmission of infectious disease. Collaborators included the International Research Institute of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (part of Columbia's Earth Institute), six African nations, and a host of U.S. and international agencies. Meanwhile, construction began on a new building to house an institute for climate prediction at Lamont-Doherty.

Close to $10 million was awarded to Columbia by the National Science Foundation to open two new multidisciplinary centers with global goals. The Environmental Molecular Science Institute, headed by George W. Flynn '64GS '66GSAS, the Higgins Professor of Chemistry and professor of chemical engineering and applied chemistry, will help chemical, automotive, and electronics firms around the world cope with problems of industrial waste disposal. The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, directed by Professor of Applied Physics Irving P. Herman, will contribute to technologies that may be the basis of the next revolution in computing and communications.

Virtually all Columbia Ph.D. students in the language and literature departments now conduct research abroad, as do most Ph.D. candidates in anthropology, art history, history, music, political science, and religion. Last year the Council for European Studies--a national consortium of eighty universities and colleges, based in SIPA and chaired by Professor of History Victoria de Grazia--announced a new national fellowship program for research in France. The Journalism School provided research fellowships in Korea and Japan.

Columbia has greatly accelerated programs of international research. A major force in achieving this progress is the revenue stream from Columbia-owned patents of discoveries made at the University. Under the leadership of Jonathan Cole, provost and dean of faculties, and Executive Vice Provost Michael Crow, this funding has served as seed money for multidisciplinary projects that often include international partners.

I conclude this survey of our international research with an initiative that will have far-reaching consequences for millions of people. A $50 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health will fund international efforts to address maternal death and disability in developing nations. Recent research has shown maternal death in developing countries to be rampant but avoidable. The School will use the gift to join with UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, governments, and nongovernmental organizations to improve the availability and quality of life-saving emergency obstetric care in the developing world.

Our international research enterprise, grown greater each year, affords Columbia one of its finest opportunities to make a powerful contribution to the future of our planet.