2017 Presidential Scholars Announced

May 08, 2017

This July, the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program will welcome its third cohort of Presidential Scholars. The two incoming postdoctoral scholars were selected from a highly competitive pool of more than 100 applicants from a variety of backgrounds and fields of research.

Scholars were selected based on their comprehensive, multidisciplinary knowledge and novel research proposals. The selection process was a cross-disciplinary effort, with 25 faculty members participating in the proposal review and on-campus interviews from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Columbia University Medical Center, Mailman School of Public Health, School of Professional Studies, Columbia Law School, and The Heyman Center for the Humanities.

Scholars will confirm at least two faculty mentors from different departments who will help to guide and support their independent research. The Scholars also help to organize the PSSN Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series, which will start up again in the fall.

Federica Coppola

  • JD, LLM PhD Candidate (2017), European University Institute, Criminal Law and Neuroscience
  • Proposal Title: Reinventing Criminal Justice with Affective and Social Neuroscience: A Study on the Implications of an Emotion-oriented Theory of Culpability for Adjudication and Punishment

Noam Zerubavel

  • Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Columbia University, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics 
  • PhD (2016), Columbia University, Psychology
  • Proposal Title: Networking Brains to Connect the Neural and Social Sciences: An Integrated Framework for Theory, Experimental Design, and Statistical Analysis