A Cornell University student reflects on finding community and belonging across campus networks, including the College of Arts & Sciences. The personal column highlights how overlapping student organizations, friendships, and shared experiences make a large university feel connected and welcoming.
Jonathan Zhu, J.D. ’92, whose A.D. White Fellowship allowed him to attend Cornell, has established the Zhu Family Graduate Fellowships supporting humanities doctoral students at Cornell University. Each of the three 2025 fellows – who are pursuing art history, anthropology, and science and technology studies, appreciates that the fellowship’s financial support paired with release from teaching responsibilities allows them the flexibility to pursue research questions as they arise.
College of Arts & Sciences graduates show strong career outcomes despite economic uncertainty, with only 1.3% of last year’s class seeking employment, according to Cornell University data. Most graduates secured jobs or graduate school placements, supported by expanded A&S Career Development programs and employer engagement.
Since the early days of modern cosmic exploration, Cornell scientists have led the way, from guiding rovers through the red dust of Mars to searching for other life in the universe; and from modeling exotic stars to detecting the faint ripples of gravitational waves.
New Cornell research identifies 45 potentially habitable rocky exoplanets using Gaia data and NASA archives, creating a catalog to guide life-search efforts. Authors are an undergraduate, two recent alumni and Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy and director of the Carl Sagan Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences.
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Sydney Womack presents her winning Three Minute Thesis during the 2025 3MT competition.
Neti Bhatt, physics is one of nine Cornell research degree students who will advance to the final round of the 2026 Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT).
Cornell physicists and Google researchers wondered whether LLMs could understand scientific literature at the level of a specialist.
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Seth Klarman ’79 (left) and Bret Stephens discuss the state of journalism and debate in the U.S. March 6 in Klarman Hall.
Use of Christian apocalyptic language by commanders reflects a climate shaped from the top down, says one Cornell expert. Another adds: the belief that Christians should actively bring about the end times rests on a misreading of the Book of Revelation.
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With her Olympic medal—and rings tattoo—at West Vancouver’s Horseshoe Bay.
Cornell’s Spacecraft Planetary Image Facility (SPIF), which manages print and online images taken by NASA missions, supports astronomy research and conducts dozens of outreach events every year.
Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study into “corporate BS” reveals.
Biodun “BJ” Jeyifo, a leading literary critic and cultural theorist known for his analysis of modernity and its attendant social and cultural crises, died Feb. 11 in Lagos, Nigeria. He was 80.
Masi Asare of Northwestern University and arts journalist Billy McEntee have been named winners of the 2024-25 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
The Department of Music is honoring the late Steven Stucky, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and beloved Cornell professor, with a series of concerts.
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Prof. Alexander Livingston talks with Upward Bound students over winter break during a pilot of the new summer program for high school students.
A Cornell historian and military expert doubts a NATO military response to the US annexation of Greenland would not happen, Despite tough talk from European leaders.
Rick Ryan/Cornell University
Lead rigger Ed Foster guides the movement of the Prime-Cam support raft, a carefully choreographed step in preparing the telescope for shipment.
Behind a world-leading telescope bound for Chile is a team of engineers, machinists, electronics specialists and riggers at Cornell. Meet the specialized staff whose expertise is helping push cosmology to new frontiers.
Cedille Records/Photo by Elliot Mandel
Record album cover: Songs in Flight
Based on poems by A&S alumna Tsitsi Ella Jaji, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’08, the songs by Shawn Okpebholo bring to life individual stories preserved by the Cornell-based Freedom on the Move project.
Gratitude not only makes you feel good, but it helps you live up to your best self and be a better member of society, psychology professor Thomas Gilovich has found.
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Shami Chatterjee, associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences; James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy; and doctoral student Sashabaw Niedbalski, on the roof of the Space Sciences Building next to the Global Radio Explorer Telescope.
Scholars converged at Cornell to talk about lessons policymakers and elected officials could glean from their research into the COVID pandemic to help deal with the next public health emergency.
… navigate this new marketplace, staff in Arts & Sciences Career Development, as well as Cornell Career Services, have … interview prep platform designed to help students land tech careers. It can help students looking into product … Career Development targets resources for students in tech …
Salvant, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy Award winner, is an artist celebrated for bringing historical depth, dramatic flair, and exceptional musical insight to jazz standards and original works.
John Tomasi, the inaugural president of Heterodox Academy, will speak on “The University at a Crossroads – and How We Can Build Cultures of Open Inquiry” as part of a series of events organized by the Provost’s Committee on the Future of the American University.
… way into poems that connect people beyond death, visit holy sites, consider Satanic bargains and consult astrology. … a medieval chapel’s construction and that visit a holy site of pilgrimage off the British coast. Other poems in the … energy that we humans reach for in our quest to become the best or the most evil or the most compassionate. …
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Fence with warning signs, rural Idaho
Where and how the tests will happen are important questions, says military historian David Silbey, as last confirmed nuclear test by the United States was in 1992.
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Reading on Libe Slope
This month’s featured titles include short stories, a fantasy book for tweens, and a scholarly look at Carmen adaptations – all by Arts & Sciences alumni and faculty.
A Nov. 13 event sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences will feature reflections on the political and social context and consequences of the Covid epidemic.
Cornell University file photo
Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo, M.F.A. ’10, speaks at Cornell in 2012.
NoViolet Bulawayo, M.F.A. ’10, assistant professor in A&S, has won the Best of Caine Award as judges have chosen her short story, “Hitting Budapest,” as the best to have won the Caine Prize for African Writing in the award’s 25 years.
… that Stucky was somehow anticipating this part of my career,” Wadsworth said, adding that the class provided him … done that. So, I did.” While Wadsworth’s early composing career focused mostly on vocal and choral music, it’s since … orchestra commissions. “It never occurred to me how much my career would be based on what people ask me to do,” he said. …
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with violin soloist James Ehnes will perform a program entitled “Postcards from Paris” in the next Dallas Morse Coors Concert Series (DMCCS) production of the 2025-26 season.
The president of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation will present Abruña with the award in a 4 p.m. ceremony in the Meshri Family Auditorium, Baker Laboratory Room 200 and also livestreamed.
The team found a significant uptick in the number of articles published after 2013 that focused on core concepts and competencies suggested in a seminal report.
Kathy Hovis
From left, Zakk Dannemann, a microfabricator at MiTeGen, works on a project, while talking with Benjamin Apker, MiTeGen’s chief executive officer, and company founder and Cornell physics professor Robert Thorne.
Journalist and biographer Sam Tanenhaus will share his writing expertise with the Cornell community in a master class, “Op-Eds and Narrative Storytelling, on Oct. 8 in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.
Ibrahim Gemeah, Ph.D. ’23, is an alumnus of the Near Eastern studies doctoral program with a focus on the history of the modern Middle East. He is now an assistant professor of modern Middle East and North African history in the department of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at Indiana University.
“Political leaders – of all stripes – hate two things: unfettered speech and being mocked. With Jimmy Kimmel, the administration got a chance to squelch both."
Through The Introductory Physics Lab Institute, professor Natasha Holmes shares best practices in physics labs.
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The 2025 Postdoc Achievement Award recipients, left to right: Heather Kim, Jennifer Grauer, Adam Beard, Shawna Cook, Inbal Ravreby, Bryan MacNeill, Lucinda Li, Bailey Flynn, and Bec (Rebecca) Schmitt.
This fall, the Cornell community has the chance to hear from three Nobel Laureates in one semester, two of whom are alumni: Claudia Goldin ’67, Jack Szostak, Ph.D. ’77, and Richard Thaler.
binaya_photography on Unsplash
Patan Durbar Square, Lalitpur, Nepal
The LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA team has announced a black hole merger similar to its first detection; a decade’s worth of technological advances allow unprecedented tests of General Relativity to be performed.
Robert Barker/Cornell University file photo
Martin Hatch in 2015
A four-day event featuring films, panels, workshops, the unveiling of a mural and other activities will celebrate the 70th anniversary of her degree, life and work. “Toni Morrison: Literature and Public Life” will take place Sept. 18-21.
Photography, drawing, maps, calligraphy, installations and audio recordings depict a trip by three scholar-artists in honor of Odysseus’ epic voyage, but in North America.
Jason Koski/Cornell University
The University acquired a collection of mollusk fossils in the 1800s.
This month’s featured titles include the latest from a top mystery writer, a Marvel omnibus, and a look at challenges to democracy – many by A&S faculty and alumni.
… proteins, to the human body’s protein receptors, the site of drug interaction. “Humans are made of chiral … more concentrated near the electrode surface with the opposite charge,” said Yue Qi , the Joan Wernig Sorensen …
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Margaret Rossiter, the Marie Underhill Noll Emerita Professor of the History of Science in the College of Arts and Sciences.
This month’s featured titles include a look at the world’s first advice column, self-help for parents, and a scholarly book on Venezuela.
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Semiconductors are at the core of the economy and national security. Their importance makes them a target. Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, discusses how Cornell is helping to keep the semiconductor supply chain safe.
A look at some projects imperiled by federal funding cuts — and how you can support your alma mater through "Cornell Matters."
A party in the Temple of Zeus for retiring Zeus manager, Lydia Dutton. Left to right: A.R. Ammons, Cecil Giscombe, Dutton, David Burak, Phyllis Janowitz, James McConkey and Tony Caputi.
… Dark”), receiving the Ribera de Duero Prize honoring the best short stories in Latin America and Spain. Her other … Aura Estrada literary award in 2015 and was named among the best Latin American writers under 40 by the Hay Festival …
… of Iranian nuclear test sides, reports indicated the sites were severely damaged but not totally destroyed. …
Devin Flores/Cornell University
Enslavers posted as many as a quarter-million newspaper ads and flyers before 1865 to locate runaway slaves. Ed Baptist is leading the public crowdsourcing project, Freedom on the Move, that has digitized tens of thousands of these advertisements in an open-source site accessible to the public.
… Thelonius Monk competition, she received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three consecutive albums, as well …
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PCST Network President Sook-kyoung Cho presents Bruce Lewenstein with the 2025 Award for the Advancement of Science Communication as a Professional Field (PCST Award).
A $2 million gift from the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts will rename the Cornell Concert Series and allow it to continue its efforts to bring world-class musicians to campus.
The showcase was the final exam for students in Cornell’s game design courses
Simon Wheeler
Associate Professor Roger Moseley, left, is taking over as the new director of the Milstein Program, a job that Associate Professor Austin Bunn, right, has held for the past three years.
The technique enables them to watch chemistry in action and collect real-time movies showing what happens to energy materials during temperature changes.
… health. I have also been able to work alongside some of the best people I have ever met, making lifelong friends in the …
'My research gave me new perspectives on what community-building really means'
"Learning to engage with the environment around me, falling in love with Ithaca and studying community-building both in my teaching and independent research was life-changing. Those few months sparked much of how I've grown today."
… I was missing the familiarity of home more than ever. My best friend and I then decided some fresh air and a walk … and safe around. Find those people who bring out the best in you, those who will celebrate you in your …
… seemed like a headache, but it quickly became one of the best “social experiments” I’ve been a part of. I made three … I’ve been most consistently involved with) is a club called Best Buddies. Cornell’s chapter is part of a larger …
'My majors allowed me to see the deep interconnections between language, culture, science and societal structures'
"I’ve explored topics ranging from healthcare disparities to the socio-political implications of biotechnology. This interdisciplinary lens has helped me understand how scientific advancements affect — and are affected by — cultural and societal values. Together, these majors have given me a well-balanced and holistic education."
