FALL 2016 COLUMBIA MAGAZINE COLUMBIA COLUMBIAMAGAZINE FALL 2016 FALL Snack Attacks 5 STARTUPS DISRUPTING THE FOOD SCENE 33.16_Cover_FINAL.indd.16_Cover_FINAL.indd 1 88/8/16/8/16 110:280:28 AAMM 33.16_Contents.indd.16_Contents.indd 1 88/4/16/4/16 33:53:53 PPMM FALL 2016 PAGE 12 CONTENTS FEATURES 12 THE BITE STUFF By Rebecca Shapiro 5 alumni startups that are disrupting the food industry 20 MVP: MOST VALUABLE PHYSICIAN By Eric Kester ’15SOA For Yankees doctor Christopher Ahmad ’90SEAS, getting better isn’t just about healing 24 TRUTH + BEAUTY Look at these photographs produced by Columbia research- ers and you can appreciate why artists take their cues from nature 32 BRIDGES TO CUBA By Paul Hond Will the quiet power of cultural diplomacy change a nation? 40 THE BIG IDEA By Eric Jaff e ’06JRN A Q&A with roboticist and mechanical-engineering Entrepreneur Eddie Song ’08CC professor Hod Lipson about NATHAN PERKEL NATHAN the future of driverless cars COLUMBIA FALL 2016 1 33.16_TOC_FINAL.indd.16_TOC_FINAL.indd PP11 88/11/16/11/16 33:01:01 PPMM CONTENTS COLUMBIA MAGAZINE DEPARTMENTS Executive Vice President, 3 University Development & Alumni Relations LETTERS Amelia Alverson Deputy Vice President for Strategic Communications 6 Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS COLLEGE WALK Dr. Doodle \ The Short List \ The Little Class that Could \ Rights of Passage \ Editor in Chief Sally Lee Corridors of Power Art Director Jeffrey Saks 44 EXPLORATIONS Managing Editor Rebecca Shapiro A shark in the dark \ Education: the great unifi er? \ Beneath Bangladesh, a tectonic PAGE Senior Editors 32 David J. Craig, Paul Hond time bomb \ A mystery of the infant brain, Copy Chief revealed \ New method for storing CO2 Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN is rock-solid \ Is anybody out there? Let’s do the math \ Cambodia’s orphanages are Assistant to the Editor Lauren Savage packed — but not with orphans \ Study Hall Editorial Assistant Sophia Wetzig 50 NETWORK Leave Them Laughing \ 5 Alumni TED Director of Digital Strategy Talks You Might Have Missed \ Signs of Life Gwynne Gauntlett \ Televisionaries \ Newsmakers Director for Marketing Research Linda Ury Greenberg 54 Director for Strategic Marketing and Communications BULLETIN PAGE Tracy Quinn ’14SPS 24 University news and views Subscriptions: 58 Address and archive assistance BOOKS [email protected] 212-851-4155 Love for Sale, by David Hajdu \ Black Hole Blues, by Janna Levin \ Chronicle of a Last To update your address online, visit alumni.columbia.edu/directory, Summer, by Yasmine El Rashidi \ Behold the or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586). Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue \ Plus, Laurence Leamer discusses The Lynching Advertising: 212-851-4155 [email protected] YANKEES © NEW YORK BAUSCH; ALEXANDRA EDEL RODRIGUEZ; TOP: FROM 63 To download our advertising brochure or CLASSIFIEDS submit a classifi ed advertisement online, visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. Letters to the editor: 64 PAGE [email protected] FINALS 20 What’s Your Line? Columbia Magazine is published for alumni and friends of Columbia by the Offi ce of Alumni and Development. FOLLOW US © 2016 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York /ColumbiaMag @columbiamag COVER ILLUSTRATION: R. KIKUO JOHNSON 2 COLUMBIA FALL 2016 33.16_TOC_FINAL.indd.16_TOC_FINAL.indd PP22 88/11/16/11/16 33:01:01 PPMM LETTERS COVER GIRL I was just so moved when I read the cover story about Myrrah Shapoo. I am very proud OUR NEW LOOK You’ve turned this proud MYRRAH’S STORY of all the staff The redesigned summer issue alumnus into an avid reader I am a scientist and have of the Columbia of Columbia Magazine is a of Columbia Magazine. worked actively in develop- home run! The articles were Mark Kaminsky ’81GSAS ing genetic-testing‘‘ services University Medical interesting, well-written, New York, NY in India akin to the one Center. Please and illuminating. The new described in your cover story convey my good format and features kept me I got the most recent issue and on Myrrah Shapoo (“Meet wishes to them. reading to the end — I think was pleasantly surprised to the Girl with Gene NUP214- it’s the fi rst time I’ve read the see what looks like an entirely ABL1,” Summer 2016). I May God bless magazine from cover to cover. new magazine. First off , the wanted to congratulate you them all. I always complained that my new design is just great: on bringing out such a great Afshan Imtiaz ’11GSAS husband’s alma mater, Prince- clean, modern, and inviting. story. It explains the scientifi c Allama Iqbal Town, ton, produced a far more I usually fi nd I read some of and technical challenges of Pakistan interesting alumni magazine. the magazine, but this time I exome sequencing very well But now I am proud to say literally read everything and for the lay reader, and retains that ours is as good or better. it was all superb. I thought the humane aspects of the Roar, Lions, Roar for a job the writing throughout was story. Indeed, it is heartening well done. fi rst-rate, and each and every to read about how PIPseq Sandra Jerez ’92CC story was compelling and led to a positive outcome for Seattle, WA thought-provoking. Great job! Myrrah, as the fi eld actively Michael Bendit ’91BUS debates the costs and benefi ts Summer’s when I cart off New York, NY of these as yet investigational a sack full of unread mate- tests with a lot of unknowns. rial and plow through it on So now Columbia Magazine Kudos also to the medical getaways, and this year the represents itself in hot-pink and scientifi c teams at Colum- standout was the wonder- type, blows up a picture of bia for making this happen! fully modern and refreshed the cutest market-researched Nandita Mullapudi Columbia Magazine. youngster for knee-jerk sym- Bangalore, India It’s a compelling and pathy, and prints a generic, great-looking read — with elbow-in-the-ribs Shakespeare SWEET HARMONIES alluring illustrations and quiz?? You can change your Thank you for publishing that terrifi c photos. Everything is name from Columbia to lovely story about Art Garfun- interesting and easy to fi nd. Generic-but-Hip Intellectual. kel and Sanford Greenberg It’s going to be one of my Wade Dizdar ’84CC (“Old Friends,” College Walk, must-reads going forward. McAllen, TX Summer 2016). I was about COLUMBIA FALL 2016 3 3.16_Letters_FINAL.indd 3 8/5/16 10:17 AM LETTERS seventeen and an upperclass- to see what students were its founder Robert Martin We met. Two of the stu- man at Forest Hills High doing there. (AKA Stephen Donald- dents organizing the group School, in Queens, New York, Not long after, I climbed son); he seemed weird to attended the meeting: a when my mother said to me: to the top fl oor of Avery. Art me at the time because I man from the College and a “Bobby, those two boys who kindly and quietly showed was sexually repressed and woman from Barnard. For come over and go downstairs me around. I was fascinated would not come out until the petition to be approved, with you to play music — I by what I saw. The next fall, I after the Stonewall riots of there needed to be fi ve bona like the tall one, Artie. He has enrolled in Columbia’s four- 1969. Author Bill Retherford fi de student signatories. I good manners and does well year architecture program is to be commended on his asked the University vice in school, and I can tell he will while completing my major research and encapsulation president if the signatories make something of himself, in government. This decision of the personal pain and were registered as students. so he can keep on coming resulted in my career as an triumph of a gay trailblazer as He said yes. So I said we over here. But that other one, architect, one I have never well as our society’s move- should approve it. Pauly, with the leather jacket regretted. Hence my con- ment toward equality in the Why? I saw it as basic civil and the DA haircut, he’s just a siderable gratitude for the decades since. rights. All we were doing bum! I don’t want you to hang fortuitous connection I might Russell Needham ’68CC was affi rming that a legiti- around with him any more.” otherwise have never made. New York, NY mate number of bona fi de This was how my mother My guilt, however, arose students wanted to start an saw Paul Simon and Art because Sandy needed more Thanks for such a fi ne article organization. General Studies Garfunkel. I have told this reading than I could provide, on Stephen Donaldson and students are diff erent; they story often (too often) and as I struggled to complete LGBTQ history in the sum- have been out in the world. preceded the telling with the assignments and take exams mer issue. Do more! My world was then the East admonition that sometimes while holding down three Allen Young ’62CC, Village, mostly, and a little of you should not listen to part-time jobs. I have always ’64JRN, ’64SIPA the West Village, where there your mother. After reading felt bad, especially since I Orange, MA were many gay people living about Art’s wonderful caring benefi ted so much from the as happily as any of us might behavior toward his classmate discovery of my interest I was the executive vice be living, defi nitely out of the who lost his sight, I realize my in architecture.