At the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, we foster discovery and creativity in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. As a premier research facility, students work side-by-side with faculty in labs, classrooms and the field to uncover new questions and answer age-old mysteries.
Our departments are actively engaged in cutting-edge research initiatives, partnering with prestigious institutes and foundations. Through the constant development of theories, the gathering and interpretation of data and the formulation of new techniques of inquiry, our research helps find solutions to real-world concerns.
Columbian College Research News
Climate Change: What Caterpillars Can Tell Us
Discovered: Oldest Flying Reptile
GW Computational Biology Institute: Making Sense of Big Data
Planet Forward Will Lead University Consortium
Restored Jewish Documents Save a People’s History
Silenced By the Sea
The evidence of climate change is seemingly all around us. But are we overlooking one of the smallest and most insightful signs? In a video conversation with Dean Ben Vinson, John Lill explains how a shift in a tiny caterpillar’s life-cycle can impact an entire ecosystem.
An international team that included Columbian College Professor James Clark and his former graduate student Brian Andres, MS ’03, has discovered and named the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid.
The Human Genome Project opened a new world of genetic research—and released a vast reserve of data. How can science decipher all that information? The Computational Biology Institute is cracking the code on complex biological systems. Read More.
Planet Forward announced the launch of the Planet Forward University Consortium, a multimedia digital story-telling collaborative to engage universities around the world in addressing environmental threats. The consortium will study sustainability and crises in food security, water, energy and climate change.
The fate of Jewish artifacts during the Nazi and Soviet domination of Eastern Europe has long been a source of angst. The Fleischman Lecture—funded through an endowment to Columbian College and hosted by Poland’s Embassy—revealed how a long-lost archive was recovered.