Student Spotlight
Profiles
Four teams were selected from among 48 applicants at Columbia Entrepreneurship’s annual campus-wide awards ceremony.
The prestigious program, now in its third decade, places graduate students directly in the offices of current and former women heads of state.
Four SIPA teams participated at an annual competition on tackling global policy challenges around fragmentation, democracy, and mobility.
After studying in six countries during his undergraduate years, Jiayuan Tian MPA ’27 cofounded an international education social enterprise and enrolled at SIPA to explore how urban and social policy shape youth educational opportunities.
As part of the 2025–26 Capstone workshops in sustainable development practice, a team of graduate students from Columbia SIPA has been working with Kumulus Water, a French-Tunisian startup developing atmospheric water generation technology, on a project focused on supply chain optimization.
Students from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) completed a study visit to the International Labour Organization in Geneva. The visit aimed to strengthen evidence on the determinants of forced labour and build practical research skills for future policymakers.
In March, a team of graduate students from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) visited Columbia Global Center Rio de Janeiro as part of their capstone project developed in partnership with Fundação BRAVA.
Cathleen Jeanty MIA ’27 navigated the throngs at this year’s Munich Security Conference as a member of the press, but what she encountered revealed quite a lot about the state of international politics.
Rory Callison shares how studying social policy grounded his understanding of politics in the everyday realities that shape people’s lives.
Inspired to pursue diplomacy growing up in the Bronx in a Ghanaian family, Khalil Ibrahim chose SIPA for its academic rigor, global perspective, and proximity to home.