News & Impact Stories at Columbia SPS

Teamwork, Working in Groups, and the Lessons of the 2026 New York Knicks

Diverse talents, humility, and shared mission show how teamwork can solve complex challenges better than individual brilliance.

Saving the World and the World Economy With Biodiversity and Nature Data Analysis

Director of the M.S. in Biodiversity Data Analytics program Viorel Popescu highlights how the new program will help students identify and address nature-related risk.

Confronting the Past: New York City’s Truth and Reconciliation Effort

At a Negotiation and Conflict Resolution event, practitioners and scholars examined how cities can address the enduring legacies of historical injustice.

The Trump Administration’s Destruction of American Scientific Innovation Marches On

Recent policies and funding cuts are undermining American scientific innovation and global competitiveness.

Trump’s Psychedelics Executive Order Could Accelerate New Treatments—Including for Children

Dr. Bob Klitzman, director of the Bioethics program, comments on how the Trump administration has fast-tracked research into psychedelics and how the effects can be more powerful and longer-lasting on a developing brain. (Scientific American)

Leading Without a Playbook: Lessons from the Front Lines of Philanthropy

Cecily M. Carson joined Columbia’s M.S. in Nonprofit Management Leadership Series to share how relationship-building and informed decision-making shape effective philanthropic work.

The Con That Comes Prepared

How AI-enabled deception, open-source software dependencies, and social engineering are reshaping enterprise cybersecurity risk.

In Defense of Economic Risk Capital at Banks: Because Simply “Not Failing” is Not a Winning Strategy

In this thought leadership piece, Columbia ERM lecturer Raj Mittal argues for the renewed relevance of economic capital as a strategic tool—complementing stress testing to help banks balance resilience with long-term value creation.

Petrochemicals and Controlling the Poisoning of Our Planet

Petrochemicals are embedded in modern life, but their environmental and health costs are becoming impossible to ignore.

Liquidity Can Be Illusionary

From Silicon Valley Bank to Lehman Brothers, history shows that liquidity crises are often driven less by balance sheet metrics and more by confidence. In Columbia’s M.S. in Enterprise Risk Management program, students learn to assess both the quantitative and behavioral dimensions of liquidity risk.

How Siddhartha Dalal Built Algorithms to Uncover History and Change the Future

M.S. in Applied Analytics Professor Siddhartha Dalal traces his decades-long career in using AI to save lives.

Electric Vehicle Use and the Adoption of Innovative Technologies

Accelerating electric vehicle adoption depends on advances in EV technology, public policies, and infrastructure investments.