Mechanical engineer Siyuan Chen PhD’18 is on a quest for “the holy grail of geology”—the ability to reliably predict earthquakes and empower communities around the world to prepare for the onset of seismic activity.

Columbia engineers are the first to miniaturize dual-frequency combs by putting two frequency comb generators on a single millimeter-sized silicon-based chip — work that could lead to low-cost, real-time portable sensing and spectroscopy in the field.

Engineering professors Karen Kasza and James Teherani have each won a prestigious, five-year award from the National Science Foundation, which supports the early career-development activities of junior faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.

“These stars are teaching us what happened to the Galactic disk – what happened to the Milky Way in the past,” said Kathryn Johnston, Columbia professor of astronomy, a co-author on the current paper and co- or lead author of papers leading up to this finding.

There’s a lot we don’t know about respiratory viruses and how they spread. A Columbia study currently underway seeks to unravel these mysteries, in part by studying people who are healthy enough to be walking around Manhattan.