Heart of the University
Arts & Sciences is the intellectual heart of the University, comprised of 28 academic departments and 60 research centers and institutes united in a pursuit of research and teaching at the highest level of ambition. Our faculty conduct ground-breaking research, attract and train graduate students, and nurture the personal and intellectual development of undergraduates—all while prioritizing the hard questions across disciplines that lead to a better understand the world’s complexity. As we seek to build the foundations of human knowledge, we welcome the partnership of our alumni and friends.
Meet Our Three Divisions
Humanities
The Humanities at Columbia present a nucleus of vibrant, innovative, and important scholarship and teaching. It is a division committed to bringing the critical and the creative closer together in order to engage meaningfully across differences and understand varying points of view. Our humanities faculty and students probe the difficult questions that will shape our futures, such as how do intellectual and cultural practices change in an AI-saturated world, and how can we best equip people to learn across their whole lives?
Natural Sciences
From the discovery of deuterium to proving plate tectonic theory, and the development of the laser to the detection of gravitational waves, the groundbreaking innovations in population genetics and cancer genomics to the astronomical theory of ice age cycles, distinguished Columbia scientists have led innovation and creative interdisciplinary collaborations for over a century. The Natural Sciences division is committed to training the next generation of scientists through cutting-edge methods in the classroom and by pursuing daunting uncertainties through their research in the lab.
Social Sciences
Our faculty study and teach timely and complex questions about the human experience, such as causal inference, climate economics, and the social dynamics of trust. By advancing new approaches understanding our increasingly interconnected, data-saturated world, our social scientists also play an important part in shaping national and international discourse and disseminating important ideas, and illuminating the complexities of society for all people.