Leadership
Tom Maniatis is the Isidore S. Edelman Professor of Biochemistry at the Columbia University Medical Center. In 2014, he was appointed Director of the Columbia’s Precision Medicine Initiative - a University-wide initiative founded by University President Lee Bollinger. In addition, he was recently named Scientific Director and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Genome Center.
Dr. Maniatis is known for pioneering the development of gene cloning technology and its application to both basic research and biotechnology. He also coauthored the definitive laboratory manual on Molecular Cloning. His research has led to fundamental advances in understanding the mechanisms of gene regulation and RNA splicing, the biochemistry of innate immunity signaling pathways, the function of single cell diversity in the nervous system, and neurodegenerative disease mechanisms.
Dr. Maniatis’ research has been recognized by many awards, including the Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology, The Richard Lounsbery Award for Biology and Medicine (Awarded by the French and U.S National Academy of Sciences), and the 2012 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the U.S. Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the U.S. Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Maniatis cofounded the New York Genome Center in 2011. He is also a pioneer in the biotechnology industry, co-founding Genetics Institute in 1980, ProScript, and Acceleron. Recently Dr. Maniatis cofounded “Kallyope”, a New York city-based gut/brain axis company.
His laboratory is currently focused on molecular neuroscience, with interests in the role single cell diversity in brain wiring, and disease mechanisms in the neurodegenerative disease ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Dr. Maniatis’ laboratory manual on Molecular Cloning was instrumental in the wide dissemination of DNA cloning methods internationally for over 30 years.
Dr. Maniatis received his B.A. and MS. degrees from the University of Colorado in chemistry and biology, and his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University. After postdoctoral studies at Harvard University and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, Dr. Maniatis was a professor at the California Institute of Technology and subsequently at Harvard University.
Lee C. Bollinger became Columbia University’s nineteenth president in 2002. Under his leadership, Columbia stands again at the very top rank of great research universities, distinguished by comprehensive academic excellence, historic institutional development, an innovative and sustainable approach to global engagement, and unprecedented levels of alumni involvement and financial stability.
President Bollinger teaching a Law School class devoted to questions raised in his book, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century
President Bollinger is Columbia’s first Seth Low Professor of the University, a member of the Columbia Law School faculty, and one of the country’s foremost First Amendment scholars. Each fall semester, he teaches “Freedom of Speech and Press” to Columbia undergraduate and graduate students. His most recent book, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century, has placed Bollinger at the center of public discussion about the importance of global free speech to continued social progress.
As president of the University of Michigan, Bollinger led the school’s historic litigation in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. These Supreme Court decisions that upheld and clarified the importance of diversity as a compelling justification for affirmative action in higher education were reaffirmed in the Court’s 2016 ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas. He speaks and writes frequently about the value of racial, cultural, and socio-economic diversity to American society through opinion columns, media interviews, and public appearances around the country. Columbia itself remains one of the most diverse universities among its peer institutions and has seen the number of applicants to Columbia College and the selectivity of admissions at the school reach record levels.
As Columbia’s president, Bollinger conceived and led the University’s most ambitious expansion in over a century with the creation of the Manhattanville campus in West Harlem, the first campus plan in the nation to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest certification for sustainable development. An historic community benefits agreement emerging from the city and state review process for the new campus provides Columbia’s local neighborhoods with decades of investment in the community’s health, education and economic growth.
The first two buildings, the Jerome L. Greene Science Center and the Lenfest Center for the Arts will open by 2017. The Jerome L. Greene Science Center will be the headquarters of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, a cornerstone venture among Columbia’s expanding interdisciplinary initiatives in neuroscience, nanotechnology and precision medicine. The home of state-of-the-art performance, screening, and presentation spaces, and a vibrant, publicly accessible venue for Columbia’s Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, the Lenfest Center will allow Columbia University School of the Arts to realize the creative vision of students and faculty, while becoming an active, engaged partner with the thriving cultural life of Upper Manhattan.
Bollinger’s commitment to excellence in architecture is evident across Columbia’s campuses, from Renzo Piano’s master plan for Manhattanville, to Rafael Moneo’s design for the Northwest Corner Building on the historic Morningside campus, to the new Columbia Sports Center at Baker Field Athletics Complex designed by Steven Holl.
Among Bollinger’s signal achievements at Columbia are the development of a network of eight Columbia Global Centers on four continents and the creation of new venues on the University’s home campus supporting global conversations and scholarship, including the World Leaders Forum and the Committee on Global Thought.
From November 1996 to 2002, Bollinger was the President of the University of Michigan, where he also had served as a law professor and dean of the Law School.
He is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is widely published on legal and constitutional issues involving free speech and press, and his books include: The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America; Images of a Free Press; and Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era. In January 2010, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide Open: A Press for a New Century was published by Oxford University Press.
Bollinger has received the National Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice and the National Equal Justice Award from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for his leadership on affirmative action. He also received the Clark Kerr Award, the highest award conferred by the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, for his service to higher education, especially on matters of freedom of speech and diversity. He is the recipient of 10 honorary degrees from universities in this country and abroad.
Bollinger is a director of Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company), serves as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and is a Trustee of The Kresge Foundation.
After graduating from the University of Oregon and Columbia Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of the Law Review, Bollinger served as law clerk for Judge Wilfred Feinberg on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Chief Justice Warren Burger on the United States Supreme Court. He joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty in 1973.
Bollinger was born in Santa Rosa, California, and raised there and in Baker, Oregon. He is married to artist Jean Magnano Bollinger, and they have two children and five grandchildren.
Katrina Armstrong, MD, leads Columbia University’s medical campus as the Chief Executive Officer of CUIMC, which includes the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S), the School of Nursing, the College of Dental Medicine, and the Mailman School of Public Health. She also is Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences for Columbia University and Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. As VP&S dean, Dr. Armstrong leads the nation’s second oldest medical school and the first to award an MD degree. She is an internationally recognized investigator in medical decision making, quality of care, and cancer prevention and outcomes, an award-winning teacher, and a practicing primary care physician.
She has served on multiple advisory panels for academic and federal organizations and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Before joining Columbia, Dr. Armstrong was the Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Before joining Harvard, she was Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine, Associate Director of the Abramson Cancer Center, and Co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Yale University (BA degree in architecture), Johns Hopkins (MD degree), and the University of Pennsylvania (MS degree in clinical epidemiology). She completed her residency training in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins.