Program Overview

This program will teach you core cybersecurity competencies including information security, network security and penetration testing. This exposure will allow the student to better understand the different opportunities available for employment in the cybersecurity sector. Demand for cybersecurity is exploding in both the United States and worldwide. The courses will utilize both python scripting and tool usage to give the students hands-on experience penetrating and defending systems. In addition to the applied cybersecurity labs, students will also gain an understanding of the complexity in defending business systems both today and in the future. Students looking for careers in information technology, risk management, cyber defense, cyber threats, cybercrime, digital forensics, incident response, IT Security, computer networking, cybersecurity risks, information assurance, intrusion detection, risk assessment, security analysis, and vulnerability management can all benefit from the material in the courses.

What you will learn

  • Apply a security mindset while remaining ethical.
  • Implement security design principles.
  • Explain the core concepts of access control.
  • Implement reference monitors.
  • Apply security policies that are commonly used in modern operating systems.
  • Analyze the security of a basic secure system.
  • Explain virtualization and the impact on security and efficiency.
  • 8. Think and work like an ethical penetration tester, implementing a repeatable and mature methodology that is tailored for each assessment.
  • With a given target, successfully identify vulnerabilities, score their risk, and explain mitigations.
  • Responsibly disclose findings in a professional report that can be used to recreate the exploit, explain the impact to the target, and prioritize each finding.
  • Enumerate target hosts, domains, exposures, and attack surface.
  • Identify flaws and vulnerabilities in applications, websites, networks, systems, protocols, and configurations using both manual techniques and assistive tools.
  • Reverse engineer compiled applications to discover exploitable weaknesses.
  • Write new exploits to test various types of vulnerabilities on clients, against servers, and to escalate privileges.
  • Demonstrate the fundamentals of secure network design.
  • Understand the issues involved with providing secure networks.
  • Analyze underlying cryptography required for secure communications, authorization and authorization.
  • Enumerate the issues involved with providing secure networks.

Courses List

1
Information Security - Introduction to Information Security

Course Details
Learn the fundamentals of information security, including Security Design Principles, Threat Modeling and Security Policy.

2
Information Security - Authentication and Access Control

Course Details
Learn more fundamentals of information security, including Introduction to Cryptography, Authentication, Access Control and Containerization.

3
Information Security - Advanced topics

Course Details
Learn more fundamentals of information security, including Injection Attacks and Defenses, Privacy and Anonymity Software Validity and Rights, Cryptocurrency.

4
Network Security - Protocols

Course Details
Learn more fundamentals of network security, including cryptographic algorithms used in networking protocols, TLS/SSL, IPSec Layer 2 Security and Wireless Security.

5
Network Security - Advanced Topics

Course Details
Learn advanced topics in network security, including Security Monitoring, Perimeter Security, IPv6 and IPv6 Security.

6
Penetration Testing - Discovering Vulnerabilities

Course Details
Learn fundamentals of penetration testing, including an Introduction to Penetration Testing Methodologies, Recognisance and Enumeration for Penetration Testers, Scanning and Vulnerability Enumeration.

7
Penetration Testing - Exploitation

Course Details
Learn exploitation phase of penetration testing, including the foundations of explorations, application debugging, reverse engineering, exploitation development and web application exploitation.

8
Penetration Testing - Post Exploitation

Course Details
Learn post-exploitation phases of penetration testing, including Owning, Pivoting, Privilege Escalation and other advanced penetration testing topics.

9
Network Security - Introduction to Network Security

Course Details
Learn fundamentals of network security, including a deep dive into how networks are attacked by malicious users.

Meet your instructors

Justin Cappos

Associate Professor at New York University Justin Cappos is a professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at New York University. Justin's research philosophy focuses on improving real world systems, often by addressing issues that arise in practical deployments.

Aspen Olmsted

Adjunct Professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering Aspen Olmsted is an adjunct faculty member in the New York University Tandon School of Engineering in the Computer Science and Engineering department. Aspen's fulltime job is as an assistant professor and Graduate program director at the College of Charleston. He obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from The University of South Carolina. Before his academic career, he was CEO of Alliance Software Corporation. Alliance Software developed N-Tier enterprise applications for the performing arts and humanities market. Dr Olmsted’s research focus is on the development of algorithms and architectures for distributed enterprise solutions that can guarantee security and correctness while maintaining high-availability. In his Secure Data Engineering Lab, Aspen mentors over a dozen graduate and undergraduate students each year
Program Overview
This program will teach you core computer science competencies in programming and data structures. Understanding how programming works is essential in many technical disciplines such Information Technology, Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, and Computer Science. The courses utilize the C++ programming languages to establish a solid foundation in programming and data structures for the students. Students gain valuable hands-on experience programming solutions to problems in the labs. I the labs, students will practice their core programming skills and will also develop many advanced data structures including, hashtables, sorting and search algorithms, binary trees, AVL trees, graph algorithms and many more advanced computing topics. In addition to the applied programming labs, students will also gain an understanding of computational complexity through the analysis of the data structures and programs that are developed.
What you will learn
  • Identify and explain a programming development lifecycle, including planning, analysis, design, development, and maintenance.
  • Demonstrate a basic understanding of object-oriented programming by using structures and classes in software projects.
  • Use object-oriented programming techniques to develop executable programs that include elements such as inheritance and polymorphism.
  • Document and format code in a consistent manner.
  • Apply basic searching and sorting algorithms in software design.
  • Apply single-and multi-dimensional arrays in software.
  • Use a symbolic debugger to find and fix runtime and logical errors in software.
  • Demonstrate a basic understanding of programming methodologies, including object oriented, structured, and procedural programming.
  • Describe the phases of program translation from source code to executable code.
  • Design and develop programs that utilize linked lists to store data internally.
  • Design and develop programs that utilize stacks and queues to manage collections of data.
  • Design and develop programs that recursion to solve problems that can be expressed with recurrence.
  • Utilize binary search trees and balanced trees to implement fast retrieval of data from a collection of data stored in memory.

Course List

1
Introduction to Programming in C++

Course Details
Learn the fundamentals of programming in the C++ programming language, including iteration, decision branching, data types and expression.

2
Advanced Programming in C++

Course Details
Learn the advanced programming topics in the C++ programming language, including functions, computation complexity, arrays and strings.

3
Introduction to Data Structures

Course Details
Learn the advanced programming topics in the C++ programming language, including pointers, dynamic storage, recursion, searching, and sorting.

4
Advanced Data Structures

Course Details
Learn the advanced programming topics in the C++ programming language, including file processing, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, binary search trees and tree balancing algorithms.

Meet Your Instructors

Aspen Olmsted

Adjunct Professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering Aspen Olmsted is an adjunct faculty member in the New York University Tandon School of Engineering in the Computer Science and Engineering department. Aspen's fulltime job is as an assistant professor and Graduate program director at the College of Charleston. He obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from The University of South Carolina. Before his academic career, he was CEO of Alliance Software Corporation. Alliance Software developed N-Tier enterprise applications for the performing arts and humanities market. Dr Olmsted’s research focus is on the development of algorithms and architectures for distributed enterprise solutions that can guarantee security and correctness while maintaining high-availability. In his Secure Data Engineering Lab, Aspen mentors over a dozen graduate and undergraduate students each year

Itay Tal

Industry Assistant Professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering Tel-Aviv University 2005 M.Sc., Computer Science Tel-Aviv University 1998 B.Sc., Computer Science and Mathematics

Program overview

The power sector is at a critical juncture. We urgently need to reduce the fossil fuel intensity of our power generation mix and, in many countries, power sector reform can bring other benefits, such as improvements in health and economic growth. In this program, leading academics from Imperial College London, alongside NREL and experts from industry, will explain why and how to clean up the power sector in your country, illustrated with current, real-life case studies and practical advice. Key global figures from the public and private sector add their own personal and professional perspectives to this course.

The Clean Power Program includes best-practice power sector reform policies from the perspectives of legislators, policymakers, the energy sector, investors and civil society. The first course will explain the way that clean power fits into a wider set of political priorities, such as health, technology, energy security, economic growth and the environment, in any country or region. In the second course, the policy landscape for the power sector is described in detail, demonstrating how policies can help stimulate the growth of clean power. The third course outlines the challenges and solutions to integrating different types of power sources into one stable, reliable system.

This program will equip you with the knowledge and tools to create a pro-renewables and investor-ready policy environment in your own region. In a world committed to meeting the climate change goals in the Paris Agreement, you will be well-informed to apply solutions in your own context.Established ten years ago as an Institute of Imperial College London, the Grantham Institute is a world-leading authority on climate change and environmental issues. The Grantham Institute will bring industry and public sector experts from around the world to share their practical and recent experience.

What you will learn

  • How to balance different political priorities to deliver clean power policies
  • What benefits clean power implementation can bring to different countries around the world and, specifically, what they bring in your context
  • What makes a successful, renewables-friendly policy environment
  • How to attract finance for your clean power projects
  • How to deliver secure and affordable clean power
  • How to integrate a high volume of variable renewables into a grid successfully

Program Class List

Meet Your Instructors

Jo Haigh

Professor at Imperial College London
Professor Joanna Haigh has been Co-Director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College since 2014. For the previous five years she was Head of the Department of Physics. Jo's scientific interests include radiative transfer in the atmosphere, climate modelling, radiative forcing of climate change and the influence of solar irradiance variability on climate. She has published widely on these topics in the scientific literature and contributed to numerous items to the written and broadcast popular media. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Institute of Physics and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College Oxford. She has been President of the Royal Meteorological Society, Editor of Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society and of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and acted on many UK and international panels.

Kris Murray

Dr at Imperial College London
Kris is an ecologist with interests in global change, conservation and health, working on problems where these key themes are interconnected, including: human health - climate, environmental and social change impacts on infectious disease burdens and distributions, disease emergence, zoonoses, biosecurity risks, health economics; and climate change - influence on ecosystems, biodiversity and health risks In particular, Kris focuses on problems that characterise the impacts of global change, that could also be leveraged for mitigating human impacts and promoting better stewardship of the natural world.

Shane Tomlinson

Mr at Imperial College London
Shane Tomlinson, a Director of E3G, leads work on political economy mapping and overseeing the UK programme. He previously served as the Director of Development at E3G working across the organisation on strategy development, fundraising and the creation of systems for change. Prior to joining E3G Shane was a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House where he published research on the future of the EU Energy Union, Brexit, stranded assets and the future of the international climate regime. He has also worked as a Policy Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit working on energy policy, sustainable consumption and production issues and the design and launch of the Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Shane holds an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, an MSc in Economic History from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics and Economic History from the University of Bristol.

Richard Green

Professor at Imperial College London
Richard Green has been studying the economics and regulation of the electricity industry for nearly 30 years. The main focus of his recent work has been on the impact of low-carbon generation (nuclear and renewables) and energy storage on the electricity market, and the business and policy implications of this. He has written extensively on market power in wholesale electricity markets and has also worked on transmission pricing. He has been a professor at Imperial College Business School since 2011. He was previously Professor of Energy Economics and Director of the Institute for Energy Research and Policy at the University of Birmingham, and Professor of Economics at the University of Hull. He started his career at the Department of Applied Economics and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He has spent time on secondment to the Office of Electricity Regulation and has held visiting appointments at the World Bank, the University of California Energy Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Clementine Chambon

Dr at Imperial College London
Clementine Chambon is a researcher in renewable energy technologies for rural electrification. Her interests lie in optimising design and delivery models for decentralised energy systems to reach the most energy-deprived communities in the world. Her current project examines biomass gasification and its application for rural electrification in LED countries. This spans topics such as electricity demand estimation, technological performance of biogasifiers, integration with other generation technologies as part of a hybrid system, and analysing their impact in terms of cost and CO2 mitigation potential. The research findings are directly commercialised through Oorja Development Solutions, a mission-driven company active in deploying solar mini-grids and community solar irrigation systems to provide clean energy access to off- and weak-grid communities in rural India.

Jeff Hardy

Dr at Imperial College London
Dr Jeffrey Hardy is a Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, where he researches energy market transformation, innovative business models. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Public Power Solutions, a wholly-owned company of Swindon Borough Council specialising in renewable power and waste solutions. Previously he was Head of Sustainable Energy Futures at the GB energy regulator, Ofgem and Head of Science for Work Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He’s also worked at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the UK Energy Research Centre, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Green Chemistry Group at the University of York and at Sellafield as research chemist in a nuclear laboratory.

Ajay Gambhir

Dr at Imperial College London
Ajay Gambhir is a Senior Research Fellow at the Imperial College London Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. His research addresses how society can transition to a low-carbon economy, considering the technologies and measures required to do so. He uses energy systems models at sub-national, national, regional and global scales to map out potential low-carbon transition pathways, with a particular focus on the processes that drive down low-carbon technology costs, thereby making their deployment more cost-effective. Ajay has been at Imperial College since 2010, during which time he has been the scientific lead on a number of low-carbon pathways studies for the UK government as part of its AVOIDing dangerous climate change programme. He has also led and participated in ESRC and EPSRC studies on manufacturing innovation for the production of low-cost solar PV modules, energy storage innovation, and rural electrification using solar PV and batteries. Currently he is focusing on the political economy of low-carbon pathways and how to design policies to support an equitable transition. Before joining Imperial College, Ajay was the Team Leader for EU and International Climate Change Economics at the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change. He has also worked in the UK’s Office for Climate Change, as part of the civil service team that prepared the initial draft of the Climate Change Act 2008, the world’s first climate legislation. He has also worked in the UK Committee on Climate Change, which he helped design and set up as part of his work on the Climate Change Act.

Program overview

The Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) supports excellence and innovation in transition programming for current and former members of the armed forces.

As a service member in transition, you may face barriers reaching your potential in accessing higher education and beginning meaningful careers, despite the many effective programs offered to this population by the Department of Labor, Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program, and other programs offered by the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. With this in mind, the CVTI is dedicated to creating free courses that will help to break down those barriers to your successful transition. Currently we are offering three courses to meet these demands, with more courses on the way. While these courses are created for veterans and active duty service members, they are free and available for all.

Attaining Higher Education is a course designed to facilitate the successful transition of active duty service members and veterans to postsecondary education, whether at a two- or four-year college for an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, or even graduate school.

University Studies for Student Veterans helps orient veterans to the norms and expectations of the college classroom, along with offering strategies to ease the transition, to help achieve academic goals, and to allow students to optimize their college education.

Find Your Calling: Transition Principles for Returning Veterans will focus on the development of interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intellectual character strengths as they relate to making a successful career transition from military service to the civilian workforce. The course content is meant to provide you with a framework for an iterative process of self-reflection and the development of practical skills that enables you to make career choices that better align with your values, ambitions, and continued service. Ultimately, this course helps you answer the question: What should I do next?

What will you learn

  • General and detailed information about colleges and universities.
  • Foundational academic and study skills for achieving academic success in college.
  • Strategies for more effective reading, writing, test preparation, and time management.
  • Practical tips and strategies for making a successful military-to-civilian career transition.
  • A framework for how to begin thinking about and exploring new career opportunities.

Program Class List

1
Attaining Higher Education

Course Details
Prepare to transition to college using intentional decision-making. Aimed at active duty service members and veterans, with this course you will learn about the college admission process, including financial aid, to help you choose a right-fit college.

2
University Studies for Student Veterans

Course Details
This course helps veterans transition smoothly from military service to college, and helps them maximize their success once they arrive.

3
Find Your Calling: Career Transition Principles for Returning Veterans

Course Details
This course provides military veterans with a useful roadmap to transition more smoothly from military service to a new and meaningful civilian career.

Meet Your Instructors

Beth E. Morgan - Pearson Advance

Beth E. Morgan

Director of Higher Education Transition and Partnerships at Columbia University Born in Quantico, Virginia, Beth grew up in a Marine Corps family and was raised around the world, living for periods of time in Hawaii, Germany, and Korea. Professionally, Beth has worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, for several non-profits, as a consultant, and on staff at major universities throughout the United States, including Colgate University, Princeton University, and the University of Southern California. Prior to joining the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University, Beth worked most recently with the non-profit Service to School as Executive Director and previously directed the Marine Corps Leadership Scholar Program (LSP), both of which assisted transitioning service members and veterans with admission to undergraduate and graduate programs. Beth has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia and a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University.

R.J. Jenkins

Curriculum Designer at Columbia University Before joining the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration as a Curriculum Designer in 2016, R.J. served as an Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies where he directed the Academic Resource Center and served as the lead instructor for University Studies, a transition course for first-year, non-traditional students. An award-winning teacher, R.J. has advised college students at Columbia, Cambridge, and Harvard Universities, and has taught courses in English and American literature, literary history, close reading, academic skill-building, and English for Speakers of Other Languages. R.J. holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and anthropology from Columbia University (2003), a Master of Letters in English literature from the University of Cambridge (2005), and is currently pursuing doctoral work in English literature.

Skip Bailey

Senior Advisor to the Director of Educational Financing at Columbia University William ”Skip” Bailey has been a financial aid administrator for more than 34 years. He has been managing financial aid for non-traditional students at the School of General Studies (GS) for over 20 years. Previously he administered financial aid at multiple colleges including the University of San Diego and the University of Michigan. A degree in education from Michigan State University and lots of experience has provided Skip with the tools he uses every day to assist students at GS with the myriad issues involved with college financial aid.
Tanya Ang - Pearson Advance

Tanya Ang

Vice President of Veterans Education Success at Columbia University Tanya is the Vice President of Veterans Education Success and has more than 17 years of experience in higher education. She has worked at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and also served as the Director of Veterans Programs at the American Council on Education. Prior to joining ACE, Tanya worked at two universities including working as an Administrative Analyst for the Vice President of Student Affairs Office at California State University - Fullerton and as Associate Registrar at Vanguard University where most her work focused on the non-traditional student including military and student veterans. She was the certifying official at her institution for student veteran GI Bill benefits and worked hand-in-hand with the various offices on-campus to ensure students received the benefits and the support they needed to successfully navigate their academic career. In her current role, she works to ensure military-connected students have access to high-quality education to achieve their long term career goals. Tanya is the first in her family to graduate from college, and earned her BA in Communications at Biola University and an MA in Organizational Leadership at Vanguard University.

Sara Remedios

Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University Sara is Associate Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies where she directs the Academic Resource Center and oversees all academic and learning initiatives. Before coming to Columbia, she worked to restructure the CUNY Pipeline Honors Program, a program dedicated to assisting exceptional undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds in gaining admission to doctoral programs. She is also an accomplished teacher. Dean Remedios holds a B.A. in English and political science from Washington University in St. Louis (2009), an M.Phil. in English literature from the City University of New York (2014), and a Ph.D. in English literature from the City University of New York (2016).

Josh Edwin

Senior Assistant Dean of Students at Columbia University Josh is Senior Assistant Dean of Students at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. His teaching experience at Columbia includes University Studies, academic writing classes, one-on-one writing support, and creative writing workshops for veterans. He has also taught at a public high school in Atlanta and an English language school in Seoul, South Korea. In addition to teaching, he has published widely as a poet, translator, and reviewer. He holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Emory University and an M.F.A. in poetry and literary translation from Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Michael Abrams

Executive Director - Center for Veteran Transition and Integration, Marine Corps Veteran at Columbia University Michael Abrams joined the Marine Corps shortly following the September 11, 2001 attacks and served on active duty for eight years, which included a deployment to Afghanistan with an infantry company as the artillery forward observer. After leaving active duty, Michael attended New York University’s Stern School of Business graduating with an M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation. While attending business school, he founded FourBlock to help bridge the gap between returning service members and the business community. The program is a university accredited, semester-long course that educates and prepares transitioning veterans for meaningful careers in corporate America. FourBlock is in nearly twenty cities across the country, educating and serving hundreds of transitioning veterans each semester. Michael is now serving as the executive director of the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration. The newly established center of excellence is dedicated to creating and supporting evidence-based programming that enables returning service members with reaching their academic and career potential.
William Deresiewicz - Pearson Advance

William Deresiewicz

Best-Selling Author, Award-Winning Essayist at Columbia University William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent speaker at colleges and other venues, and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. He taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer in 2008. Bill has published over 250 essays and reviews. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Nation, The New Republic, The American Scholar, and many other publications. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sydney Award; he is also a three-time National Magazine Award nominee. His work has been translated into 17 languages and anthologized in more than 30 college readers. He has spoken at over 80 colleges, high schools, and educational groups and has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges. Bill’s previous book is A Jane Austen Education. He is working on a book about how artists are making a living in the new economy.  

Sheena Iyengar

World-Renowned Expert on Choice, S. T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia University Professor Iyengar has taught courses in leadership and entrepreneurial creativity. Her research addresses the implications of offering people, whether they be employees or consumers, choices. She has examined choice in a multitude of contexts ranging from employee motivation and performance in a global organization, Citigroup, to chocolate displays at Godiva, to the magazine aisles of supermarkets, and to mutual fund options in retirement benefit plans. Professor Iyengar received the Presidential Early Career Award for her ongoing work in examining cultural, individual, and situational factors that influence people's choice-making preferences and behaviors.

Sebastian Junger

NYT Best-Selling Author, Documentary Filmmaker at Columbia University Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of THE PERFECT STORM, FIRE, A DEATH IN BELMONT, WAR and TRIBE. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world, and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. Junger is also a documentary filmmaker whose debut film "Restrepo", a feature-length documentary (co-directed with Tim Hetherington), was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

What you will learn

  • Understand that food security depends on food availability, food access, food utilization and stability
  • How we can produce enough food for everyone
  • How sustainable different food production systems are
  • How to assure access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food for everyone
  • About actors and activities to achieve food security at international, national, local, household, and individual level

Program Overview

Get involved: let’s find a way to feed 9 billion people in 2050

What are the biggest environmental issues we face? Pollution? Climate change? True. But among these environmental topics, feeding the growing population, 9 billion in 2050, is one of the most pressing issues we have to find a solution for.

To solve this problem, we need people to gain knowledge, do research, and explore the options. You can be a piece of the puzzle, help find a solution, and start now by gaining knowledge about food production systems, food security, sustainable development in agriculture and livestock, and systems thinking.

XSeries sustainable food security

How is it possible that the world currently produces enough food for everyone, but still people suffer from hunger and nutrient deficiencies? How can we produce sufficient food in an environmentally sustainable way to feed the increased world population in the future?

This Environmental Studies XSeries, developed by Wageningen University, consists of 3 courses:

The value of systems thinking

Learn about systems thinking and its application to improve the environmental sustainability of food production systems. The main topics are:

  • Complexity and diversity of food production systems
  • Principles of system analysis
  • Evaluation methods for the environmental impact of food production systems
  • Strong and weak points of different food production systems

Crop production

Learn the basics of crop production to feed the world and preserve our planet’s resources. The main topics are:

  • Basic concept of plant production
  • Issues related to global food production and consumption
  • Influences of water (scarcity and availability) and other measures on crop production
  • Processes that cause major problems for the environment
  • Measures to solve and prevent those problems

Food Access

Learn about the basics of food access decision-making from a multilevel perspective. The main topics are:

  • The basic principles of food access
  • Choices influencing food access
  • Dilemmas at household, local, national and international levels

About Wageningen University & Research

At Wageningen University and Research, we are dedicated to exploring the potential of nature to improve the quality of life. Studies and courses train (future) professionals from all over the world in sustainable food systems and help consumers make informed choices about what they eat, how it is produced and the impact of their decisions on the environment and society.

Course structures and certificates

The duration of each course (or MOOC: Massive Open Online Course) is flexible: study any time and place you want. You decide how to spend your time during a course. Gain the knowledge offered in each course free of charge through dynamic modules filled with video, syllabus, and assignments for practice and grading. Obtain your verified certificate for $ 49,- each. After successful completion of all 3 courses, you can obtain an overall certificate.

About course dates

EdX keeps courses available, even if the recent course date has expired. Enroll nonetheless, and allow yourself to explore content and continue learning. However, not all features and materials may be available. Check back often to see when new start dates are announced.

Scroll down to find more information about each separate course and join the Wageningen University XSeries about sustainable food security.

Courses in this program

1
Sustainable Food Security: Crop Production

Course Details
Learn the basics of crop production and find out how to feed the future world population without depleting our planet’s resources!

2
Sustainable Food Security: The value of systems thinking

Course Details
Learn how to solve the 'Rubik's cube' of systems thinking and how it's applied to improve the environmental sustainability of food production systems!

3
Sustainable Food Security: Food Access

Course Details
Learn the basics of food access decision-making. In other words, who decides what ends up on your plate. Spoiler alert: it’s not just you!

Meet your instructors

Eddie Bokkers

Eddie Bokkers holds a PhD in Animal Sciences from Wageningen University. He is an associate professor at the Animal Production Systems group of Professor Imke de Boer. Eddie Bokkers teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students including the course ‘Systems Approach in Animal Sciences’. That is why we could not find a more suitable person for explaining the systems approach in this MOOC. Eddie Bokkers manages several research projects contributing to our knowledge of sustainable development of animal production systems. He is especially interested in trade-offs and synergies between animal welfare, environmental impact and economics.

Martin van Ittersum

Martin van Ittersum holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Science from Wageningen University. He is a professor at the Plant Production Systems group of the same university. His research and teaching focus on research concepts and methods for the analysis, design and integrated assessment of agricultural systems from field to farm, at regional and global levels. He applies these concepts to investigate opportunities for sustainable intensification of local and global food production. He (co-)developed and applied several of the concepts taught in this MOOC. He is currently co-leading the Global Yield Gap Atlas project that aims to map where and how much food production can be increased on existing agricultural land. He is also involved in research on resource use efficiency and environmental effects of different agricultural systems.

Ken Giller

Prof. Dr. Ken Giller is an outstanding expert in the field of Plant Production Systems. He leads a group of scientists with profound experience in farming systems analysis to explore future scenarios for land use with a focus on food production at Wageningen University. Ken’s research has focused on smallholder farming systems in tropical regions with special attention for sub-Saharan Africa. In particular problems of soil fertility, the role of nitrogen fixation in tropical legumes, and the temporal and spatial dynamics of resources use within crop/livestock farming systems have this interest. He leads a number of large initiatives such as N2Africa (Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa), NUANCES(Nutrient Use in Animal and Cropping Systems: Efficiencies and Scales) and Competing Claims on Natural Resources.

​Harrie Lovenstein

Harrie Lovenstein holds an MSc in tropical agronomy. He has specialized in arid land agriculture and gained hands on experience in o.a. runoff farming, agroforestry systems, and tree propagation techniques. All with common goal: "more crop per drop." He is presently affiliated to the Centre for Sustainable Development and Food Security at WageningenUR and involved in distance learning projects.

Gerrie van de Ven

Gerrie van de Ven holds a PhD in Agricultural Science from Wageningen University. She is employed at the Plant Production Systems Group. Gerrie van de Ven combines teaching and research with a focus on farming systems analysis and optimisation of land use systems. Nutrient cycling, environmental impacts and the interaction between crops and livestock, both in the western world and in Africa, have her special attention. Her scientific work has built on systems analysis and modelling approaches, mainly at the farm and regional level, as taught in this MOOC. She teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students on these subjects.

Marrit van den Berg

Marrit van den Berg is associate professor at the Development Economics group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She studied tropical land use and development economics and obtained her PhD from Wageningen University in 2001.Her research concentrates on the livelihood of rural households in developing countries with special attention for food and nutrition security, (off-farm) diversification, technology adoption, and microfinance. She is involved in several projects assessing the impact of development interventions as project leader and senior researcher. Her teaching concentrates on methods, techniques and data analysis for field research. Her own toolbox includes mainly quantitative methods, such as econometric analysis of large scale surveys, behavioural experiments, and randomized controlled trials . She predominantly works with primary data and has research experience in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Hilde Bras

Hilde Bras (1968) is full professor and chair of the Sociology of Consumption and Households Group (SCH) at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Utrecht University/ICS. She has published extensively on demographic and life course outcomes, including marriage, fertility, migration and status attainment, on social changes in families and households, and on sibling differences and effects. She received prestigious grants for her work on siblings (VENI, Medium Investment) and for her research on family influences on fertility (VIDI, ASPASIA). She is co-editor-in-chief of The History of the Family: An International Quarterly. Her current research focuses on inequalities in food and nutrition security within and across households, and particularly on the causes and effects of inadequate food access in the life courses of women, children and adolescents.

Jeroen Candel

Jeroen Candel finished a bachelor in Public Administration and Organisational Science and a master in Public Governance (cum laude) at Utrecht University before completing his PhD research entitled 'Putting food on the table: the European Union governance of the wicked problem of food security' at the Public Administration and Policy Group (PAP), Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in April 2016. He currently works as assistant professor at the PAP group. He is interested in emerging forms of food policy and governance and studies these by applying public policy and governance theories. By doing so, he both contributes to theoretical debates and provides concrete suggestions for policymakers and stakeholders. Beside his research, Jeroen coordinates and teaches introductory courses on Public Policy and Governance and European Union politics.

Jessica Duncan

Jessica Duncan is an Assistant Professor in the Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University. She holds a PhD in Food Policy from City University London and is the author of the book Global Food Security Governance: Civil society engagement in the reformed Committee on World Food Security (Routledge, 2015). She is an Associate Editor of the journal Food Security and the co-chair of the ECPR Food Policy and Governance Research Network. Her research focuses on the social-political dynamics of global norm setting for food security and the ways in which non-state actors participate in policy making processes. She is motivated by transformative governance mechanisms that support pathways to just and sustainable food systems.

Ewout Frankema

Ewout Frankema is professor and chair of Rural and Environmental History at Wageningen University and elected member of the Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on a deeper understanding of the long-term economic history of developing regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia). His work is based on a holistic conception of historical evolutionary processes in which he aims to link the distinctive fields of economic and social history, colonial history, rural history, neo-institutional economics, political economy and environmental history. Frankema is a board member of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, the African Economic History Network (AEHN) and the Center for Global Economic History (CGEH), research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and editorial board member of the Economic History of Developing Regions (EHDR).

Peter Oosterveer

Peter Oosterveer received his PhD in 2005 at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His research and teaching is in the field of globalization and sustainability of food production and consumption. His interests are in particular on global public and private governance of food towards sustainability, including labeling and certification of food. Increasing globalisation of food raises difficult challenges in promoting sustainability as distances between producers and consumers are increasing and supply chains are becoming more complex. Conventional national government-based regulation is no longer sufficient and therefore the roles of private and civil society based actors are becoming more important. His research is focusing on these shifts and their consequences for the organisation of the supply chain and the roles of different social actors therein.

Maja Slingerland

Maja Slingerland holds a PhD degree in farming systems (2000), at Wageningen University. She worked for 10 years in research and development in west Africa. She initiated and coordinated large interdisciplinary research programmes: micronutrients (China, Benin, Burkina Faso); competing claims on natural resources (southern Africa, Brazil) and sustainable oil palm (Indonesia, Thailand). She is member of the steering committee of WU strategic funded interdisciplinary programmes "Scaling and Governance" and "Smart and Sustainable Food production" and of two interdisciplinary research programmes on conflict and climate change of the Dutch Science Foundation. She supervises PhD and Master studies, participates in public debates and published over 100 articles and book chapters in scientific and popular journals. She teaches a global food security course.

Sietze Vellema

Sietze Vellema is associate professor at the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation group, Wageningen University, and senior researcher at the Partnerships Resource Centre, Rotterdam School of Management, the Netherlands. Sietze’s interest is to understand why and how different actors collaborate in solving organisational, managerial, and technical problems related to inclusive development and sustainable food provision. He studies partnerships, certification, and institutional arrangements in agri-food chains and supervises PhD candidates in different fields: collective action in oil palm, shea, and sesame in West Africa; trading practices in East and West Africa; food safety and consumer practices in Southeast Asia; labels, governance and service delivery in global commodity trade; coordination and diversity in banana production in Asia. He leads action research focusing on value chains, partnerships, poverty, and food security in Africa.

I.J.M. de Boer

Professor Imke de Boer holds a PhD in Animal Sciences from Wageningen University. Since 2011, she leads the Animal Production Systems (APS) group at Wageningen University. This chair group uses system analysis to scientifically underpin sustainable development of animal production systems. They focus on exploring the multi-dimensional, and sometimes conflicting, consequences of innovations in livestock systems across the world, with special focus on their impact on the environment, animal welfare and livelihood of people. Imke de Boer teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and supervises many PhD students in this knowledge domain.

Carolien Kroeze

Professor Carolien Kroeze is personal professor in the Environmental Systems Analysis Group at Wageningen University, specialized in pollution management. She has also been professor at the Open University of the Netherlands. Her research includes scenario analyses and evaluation of environmental policies aiming at reducing multiple environmental problems simultaneously. Carolien Kroeze co-developed environmental models studying environmental problems caused by food production, and options to reduce these problems. These models typically integrated information from the natural and social sciences.

Program overview

The Project Management MicroMasters® program from RIT is a graduate level series of courses designed to provide you with the in-depth knowledge and skills needed to be a successful project manager in any industry. This online sequence is a semester’s worth of work from RIT’s Master’s degree and consists of three courses and a final capstone exam.

By earning the MicroMasters® program certificate you will develop the leadership skills needed to effectively manage a team that will meet the expectations of your customers and business goals. Build on your MicroMasters® program certificate by applying to RIT’s School of Individualized Study for a customized master’s degree.

What you will learn

  • The tools and techniques to manage the comprehensive project management life cycle for a project – from initiation through closing.
  • To balance the critical tradeoffs of time, cost and scope to meet customer expectations.
  • The ability to apply best practices across a variety of industries and businesses.
  • Lead a project to success, and how to capitalize on the leadership and behavioral facets to do so.
  • To navigate the social and cultural aspects, legal and regulatory practices, technology and infrastructure that influence projects’ success in the global market.

Program Class List

1
Project Management Life Cycle

Course Details
Project Management is one of the most in-demand skills in all industries -- from healthcare to technology and business. Take this one course, or the entire program, to prove your skills to employers.

2
Best Practices for Project Management Success

Course Details
Learn how to create an organizational environment that supports project success.

3
International Project Management

Course Details
Learn what makes global projects uniquely challenging and how to successfully manage projects based in different industries and countries.

4
Project Management MicroMasters® Capstone Exam

Course Details
Demonstrate the knowledge and skills acquired in the Project Management MicroMasters program, and prepare for graduate level program options at RIT.

Meet Your Instructors

Celine Gullace

Celine is an Instructor of Project Management at the School of Individualized Study at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Celine has over 20 years of experience in business management and teaching. She has a keen interest in influencing business decisions and leading high visibility projects. She is an experienced project management instructor and award winning teacher in mathematics. Celine was born and raised in the South of France and came to the US in 1993 to continue her education. For more information, please contact ritonline@rit.edu.

Leonie Fernandes

Leonie is an Instructor of Project Management at the School of Individualized Study at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is a certified Project Management Professional with over 25 years of project management experience in large, global corporations in the high tech, manufacturing, healthcare and automotive industries. Leonie has extensive coaching and mentoring in leading projects within the United States and in the global arena. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and master’s degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology. For more information, please contact ritonline@rit.edu.

Program overview

Gain an interdisciplinary understanding of the essential fundamentals of analytics, including analysis methods, analytical tools, such as R, Python and SQL, and business applications.

Using common analytics software and tools, statistical and machine learning methods, and data-intensive computing and visualization techniques, learners will gain the experience necessary to integrate all of these parts for maximum impact.

Project experience is also included as part of the MicroMasters® program. Through these projects, learners will hone their skills with data collection, storage, analysis, and visualization tools, as well as gain instincts for how and when each tool should be used.

These projects provide hands-on experience with real-world business applications of analytics and a deeper understanding of how to apply analytics skills to make the biggest difference.

 

What you will learn

  • Use essential analytics tools like R, Python, SQL, and more.
  • Understand fundamental models and methods of analytics, and how and when to apply them.
  • Learn to build a data analysis pipeline, from collection and storage through analysis and interactive visualization.
  • Apply your new analytics skills in a business context to maximize your impact.

Program Class List

1
Computing for Data Analysis

Course Details
A hands-on introduction to basic programming principles and practice relevant to modern data analysis, data mining, and machine learning.

2
Data Analytics for Business

Course Details
This course prepares students to understand business analytics and become leaders in these areas in business organizations.

3
Introduction to Analytics Modeling

Course Details
Learn essential analytics models and methods and how to appropriately apply them, using tools such as R, to retrieve desired insights.

Meet your instructors

Joel Sokol

Director of the Master of Science in Analytics program
He received his PhD in operations research from MIT and his bachelor’s degrees in mathematics, computer science, and applied sciences in engineering from Rutgers University. His primary research interests are in sports analytics and applied operations research. He has worked with teams or leagues in all three of the major American sports. Dr. Sokol's LRMC method for predictive modeling of the NCAA basketball tournament is an industry leader, and his non-sports research has won the EURO Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize. Dr. Sokol has also won recognition for his teaching and curriculum development from IIE and the NAE, and is the recipient of Georgia Tech's highest awards for teaching.

Richard W. Vuduc

Associate Professor of Computational Science and Engineering
Associate Professor of Computational Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sridhar Narasimhan

Professor at The Georgia Institute of Technology
Sridhar Narasimhan is Professor of IT Management and Co-Director -Business Analytics Center (BAC), Scheller College of Business. The BAC partners with its Executive Council companies in the analytics space and supports Scheller’s BSBA, MBA, and MS Analytics programs. Professor Narasimhan has developed and taught the MBA IT Practicum course. Since 2016, he has been teaching Business Analytics to undergraduate and MBA students at Scheller. Professor Narasimhan is the founder and first Area Coordinator of the nationally ranked Information Technology Management area. In fall 2010, he was the Acting Dean and led the College in its successful AACSB Maintenance of Accreditation effort. He was Senior Associate Dean from 2007 through 2015.
Charles Turnitsa - Pearson Advance

Charles Turnitsa

Professor at The Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Charles "Chuck" Turnitsa has spent a career, since the early 1990s, in performing information systems and modeling based research and development, chiefly for the Department of Defense and for NASA. He received his PhD from Old Dominion University in Modeling and Simulation (M&S), and has spent some years teaching a variety of topics in the field. Most recently, before coming to Georgia Tech, he spent two years leading the M&S Graduate Program at Columbus State University. Now he is serving as research faculty with Georgia Tech Research Institute, continuing research into various topics related to M&S, and continuing to teach graduate level and professional education level topics in information systems and M&S.

What you will learn

  • Effective communication, both oral and written; analyzing your audience, preparing to communicate, tailoring messages, storytelling, and advanced communication skills.
  • Core value propositions and a business model framework, competition and macro environmental tools, theories of disruption, basic accounting literacy and concludes with an integrated look at business functions.
  • Market Research and its importance to strategy, brand strategy, pricing, integrated marketing communication, social media strategy, and more.

Course LIst

1
Business Foundations

Course Details
This is business in a nutshell; learn key concepts and frameworks that underpin business.

2
Business Communications

Course Details
Learn how to communicate effectively in a business setting: understand diverse audiences and build sound arguments.

3
Introduction to Marketing

Course Details
Learn the fundamentals to marketing, including strategies and tools used across industries.

Meet your instructors

Elicia Salzberg

Elicia is a popular lecturer in the law and business communications group at UBC Sauder. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a lawyer at a national law firm where she worked with all types of companies, from start-ups to major international companies. Elicia’s expertise is in enabling companies to successfully navigate critical business situations, such as obtaining initial funding, negotiating strategic transactions, and raising capital in private markets. Her ability to provide practical solutions that directly tie to business objectives directly informs Elicia’s teaching practice at UBC, where she works with undergraduate and graduate students. She completed both her BComm and JD at UBC.

Marlisse Silver Sweeney

Marlisse is a lecturer in the Law and Business Communications group at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She completed her BFA and JD at UBC, followed by her MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 2012 and is a non-practicing lawyer. Marlisse is a freelance journalist, while also teaching top-rated business communication courses at UBC. Her writing has been published throughout North America, including in The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, The Columbia Journalism Review, Ars Technica, Public Radio International, Salon, The Daily Beast and American Lawyer Magazine.

Darren Dahl

Darren is the Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and Research, and the BC Innovation Council Professor at the Sauder School of Business. He was appointed a 3M National Teaching Fellow in 2013 and is recognized globally for both is research and teaching excellence in marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Darren was ranked as the #1 professor worldwide for marketing research by the American Marketing Associated in 2015 and was runnier up in The Economist _magazine’s Business Professor of the Year in 2013. His research has been presented at numerous national and international conferences, and published in various texts and such journals as the _Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Management Science, _and _Journal of Consumer Psychology. He is currently the associate editor of the Journal of Consumer Research and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Consumer Psychology. He has consulted and organized education programs for a number of non-profit and for-profit organizations such as Cathay Pacific, Proctoer & Gamble, Xerox, General Electric, Vancouver Public Health, Teekay Shipping, Hagensborg Foods, Lulu Lemon Athletica, Earls Restaurants, BCLC, Agent Provocateur, Daehong Advertising – Korea, and LIC India. Darren received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.

Paul Cubbon

Paul is a full-time faculty member of the Marketing and Behavioural Science Division at the Sauder School of Business at UBC. He leads the Entrepreneurship Group, in the undergraduate and graduate programs, teaching actively in both of these. Paul is a multiple award winning educator, both for innovative design of learning experiences, and consistent high quality and was awarded the Sauder School of Business, UBC “Talking Stick” for pedagogical innovation. He engages in substantial team-teaching work, and collaboration across faculties to support effective learning in new venture start-ups and successful marketing of these, focusing on customer discovery and business model validation with STEM researchers. Paul has consulted extensively to industry both in formal educational training, and privately. Prior to moving into education, Paul’s career in industry includes 3 years in advertising, working for J Walter Thompson, and 10 years with Unilever, the Anglo Dutch consumer goods’ multinational, where to undertook major assignments in marketing and sales. Paul holds a B.A. Honours degree from Oxford University, England, and an MBA from Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada.

What you will learn

  • The history of data science, tangible illustrations of how data science and analytics are used in decision making across multiple sectors today, and expert opinion on what the future might hold
  • A practical understanding of the fundamental methods used by data scientists including; statistical thinking and conditional probability, machine learning and algorithms, and effective approaches for data visualization
  • The major components of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the potential of IoT to totally transform the way in which we live and work in the not-to-distant future
  • How data scientists are using natural language processing (NLP), audio and video processing to extract useful information from books, scientific articles, twitter feeds, voice recordings, YouTube videos and much more

Program Class List

1
Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics

Course Details
Learn how statistics plays a central role in the data science approach.

2
Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics

Course Details
Learn the principles of machine learning and the importance of algorithms.

3
Enabling Technologies for Data Science and Analytics: The Internet of Things

Course Details
Discover the relationship between Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Meet your instructors

Tian Zheng

About Me

Tian Zheng is associate professor of Statistics at Columbia University. She obtained her PhD from Columbia in 2002. Her research is to develop novel methods and improve existing methods for exploring and analyzing interesting patterns in complex data from different application domains. Her current projects are in the fields of statistical genetics, bioinformatics and computational biology, feature selection and classification for high dimensional data, and network analysis. Especially, Dr. Zheng have been developing statistical and computational tools for high dimensional data, searching for genetic interactions associated with complex human disorders, quantifying social structure and studying hard-to-reach populations using survey questions, with more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in journals including JASA, AOAS and PNAS. Her work was recognized with the 2008 Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the American Statistical Association, The Mitchell Prize from ISBA and a Google research award. She is on the editorial board of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining and Frontier in Genetics. She was Associate Editor for JASA from 2007 to 2013.

Kathy McKeown

About Me

A leading scholar and researcher in the field of natural language processing, McKeown focuses her research on big data; her interests include text summarization, question answering, natural language generation, multimedia explanation, digital libraries, and multilingual applications. Her research group's Columbia Newsblaster, which has been live since 2001, is an online system that automatically tracks the day's news, and demonstrates the group's new technologies for multi-document summarization, clustering, and text categorization, among others. Currently, she leads a large research project involving prediction of technology emergence from a large collection of journal articles. McKeown joined Columbia in 1982, immediately after earning her Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania. In 1989, she became the first woman professor in the school to receive tenure, and later the first woman to serve as a department chair (1998-2003).

Ansaf Salleb-Aouissi

Ansaf is a Lecturer in discipline of the Computer Science Department at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. She received her her BS in Computer Science in 1996 from the University of Science and Technology (USTHB), Algeria. She earned her masters and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Orleans (France) in 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Cliff Stein

About Me

His research interests include the design and analysis of algorithms, combinatorial optimization, operations research, network algorithms, scheduling, algorithm engineering and computational biology. Professor Stein has published many influential papers in the leading conferences and journals in his field, and has occupied a variety of editorial positions including the journals ACM Transactions on Algorithms, Mathematical Programming, Journal of Algorithms, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics and Operations Research Letters. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and Sloan Foundation. He is the winner of several prestigious awards including an NSF Career Award, an Alfred Sloan Research Fellowship and the Karen Wetterhahn Award for Distinguished Creative or Scholarly Achievement. He is also the co-author of the two textbooks. Introduction to Algorithms, with T. Cormen, C. Leiserson and R. Rivest is currently the best-selling textbook in algorithms and has sold over half a million copies and been translated into 15 languages. Discrete Math for Computer Scientists , with Ken Bogart and Scot Drysdale, is a new text book which covers discrete math at an undergraduate level.

David Blei

About Me

David Blei joined Columbia in Fall 2014 as a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics. His research involves probabilistic topic models, Bayesian nonparametric methods, and approximate posterior inference. He works on a variety of applications, including text, images, music, social networks, user behavior, and scientific data. Professor Blei earned his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Brown University (1997) and his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley (2004). Before arriving to Columbia, he was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. He has received several awards for his research, including a Sloan Fellowship (2010), Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2011), Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2011), and Blavatnik Faculty Award (2013).

Itsik Peer

About Me

Itsik Pe’er is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. His laboratory develops and applies computational methods for the analysis of high-throughput data in germline human genetics. Specifically, he has a strong interest in isolated populations such as Pacific Islanders and Ashkenazi Jews. The Pe’er Lab has developed methodology to identify hidden relatives — primarily in such isolated populations — that involves inferring their past demography, detecting associations between phenotypes and genetic segments co-inherited from the joint ancestors of hidden relatives, and establishing the exceptional utility of whole-genome sequencing in population genetics. With the arrival of high-throughput sequencing methods, Pe’er has focused on characterizing genetic variation that is unique to isolated populations, including the effects of such variation on phenotype.

Mihalis Yannakakis

About Me

He studied at the National Technical University of Athens (Diploma in Electrical Engineering, 1975), and at Princeton University (PhD in Computer Science, 1979). He worked at Bell Labs Research from 1978 until 2001, as Member of Technical Staff (1978-1991) and as Head of the Computing Principles Research Department (1991-2001). He was Director of Computing Principles Research at Avaya Labs (2001-2002), and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University (2002-2003). He joined Columbia University in 2004. His research interests include design and analysis of algorithms, complexity theory, combinatorial optimization, game theory, databases, and modeling, verification and testing of reactive systems.

Peter Orbanz

About Me

Before coming to New York, he was a Research Fellow in the Machine Learning Group of Zoubin Ghahramani at the University of Cambridge, and previously a graduate student of Joachim M. Buhmann at ETH Zurich. His main research interests are the statistics of discrete objects and structures: permutations, graphs, partitions, and binary sequences. Most of his recent work concerns representation problems and latent variable algorithms in Bayesian nonparametrics. More generally, he is interested in all mathematical aspects of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Fred Jiang

Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia University
Fred received his B.Sc. (2004) and M.Sc. (2007) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and his Ph.D. (2010) in Computer Science, all from UC Berkeley. Before joining SEAS, he was Senior Staff Researcher and Director of Analytics and IoT Research at Intel Labs China. Fred’s research interests include cyber physical systems and data analytics, smart and sustainable buildings, mobile and wearable systems, environmental monitoring and control, and connected health & fitness. His ACme building energy platform has been widely adopted by universities and industries, including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Taiwan University, and several commercial companies. His project on wearable and mobile fitness, in collaboration with University of Virginia, was featured on New Scientist and the Economist magazine. His air-quality monitoring project has been featured on China Central Television and People’s Daily, and was successfully incubated into a startup. He is actively serving on several technical and organizing committees including ACM SenSys, ACM/IEEE IPSN, and ACM BuildSys. He was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellow and a Vodafone-US Foundation Fellow.

Julia Hirschberg

Percy K. and Vida LW Hudson Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University
Julia Hirschberg does research in prosody, spoken dialogue systems, and emotional and deceptive speech. She received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. She worked at Bell Laboratories and AT&T Laboratories -- Research from 1985-2003 as a Member of Technical Staff and as a Department Head, creating the Human-Computer Interface Research Department at Bell Labs and moving with it to AT&T Labs. She served as editor-in-chief of Computational Linguistics from 1993-2003 and as an editor-in-chief of Speech Communication from 2003-2006. She is on the Editorial Board of Speech Communication and of the Journal of Pragmatics. She was on the Executive Board of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) from 1993-2003, have been on the Permanent Council of International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) since 1996, and served on the board of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) from 1999-2007 (as President 2005-2007). She is currently the chair of the ISCA Distinguished Lecturers selection committee. She is on the IEEE SLTC, the executive board of the North American chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, the CRA Board of Directors, and the board of the CRA-W. She has been active in working for diversity at AT&T and at Columbia. She has been a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence since 1994, an ISCA Fellow since 2008, and became an ACL Fellow in the founding group in 2012. She received a Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association (CESAA) Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award in 2009, received an honorary doctorate (hedersdoktor) from KTH in 2007, is the 2011 recipient of the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award and, also received the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement in the same year.

Michael Collins

Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University
Michael J. Collins is a researcher in the field of computational linguistics. His research interests are in natural language processing as well as machine learning and he has made important contributions in statistical parsing and in statistical machine learning. One notable contribution is a state-of-the-art parser for the Penn Wall Street Journal corpus. His research covers a wide range of topics such as parse re-ranking, tree kernels, semi-supervised learning, machine translation and exponentiated gradient algorithms with a general focus on discriminative models and structured prediction.

Shih-Fu Chang

Richard Dicker Chair Professor at Columbia University
Shih-Fu Chang’s research interest is focused on multimedia retrieval, computer vision, signal processing, and machine learning. He and his students have developed some of the earliest image/video search engines, such as VisualSEEk, VideoQ, and WebSEEk, contributing to the foundation of the vibrant field of content-based visual search and commercial systems for Web image search. Recognized by many best paper awards and high citation impacts, his scholarly work set trends in several important areas, such as compressed-domain video manipulation, video structure parsing, image authentication, large-scale indexing, and video content analysis. His group demonstrated the best performance in video annotation (2008) and multimedia event detection (2010) in the international video retrieval evaluation forum TRECVID. The video concept classifier library, ontology, and annotated video corpora released by his group have been used by more than 100 groups. He co-led the ADVENT university-industry research consortium with the participation of more than 25 industry sponsors. He has received IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, ACM SIGMM Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu award, IBM Faculty award, and Service Recognition Awards from IEEE and ACM. He served as the general co-chair of ACM Multimedia conference in 2000 and 2010, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2006-8), Chairman of Columbia Electrical Engineering Department (2007-2010), Senior Vice Dean of Columbia Engineering School (2012-date), and advisor for several companies and research institutes. His research has been broadly supported by government agencies as well as many industry sponsors. He is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Zoran Kostic

About Me

Zoran Kostic completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Rochester and his Dipl. Ing. degree at the University of Novi Sad. He spent most of his career in industry where he worked in research, product development and in leadership positions. Zoran's expertise spans mobile data systems, wireless communications, signal processing, multimedia, system-on-chip development and applications of parallel computing. His work comprises a mix of research, system architecture and software/hardware development, which resulted in a notable publication record, three dozen patents, and critical contributions to successful products. He has experience in Intellectual Property consulting. Dr. Kostic is an active member of the IEEE, and he has served as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Communications Letters.

Andrew Gelman

Andrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. He has received the Outstanding Statistical Application award from the American Statistical Association, the award for best article published in the American Political Science Review, and the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies award for outstanding contributions by a person under the age of 40. Andrew has done research on a wide range of topics, including: why it is rational to vote; why campaign polls are so variable when elections are so predictable; why redistricting is good for democracy; reversals of death sentences; police stops in New York City, the statistical challenges of estimating small effects; the probability that your vote will be decisive; seats and votes in Congress; social network structure; arsenic in Bangladesh; radon in your basement; toxicology; medical imaging; and methods in surveys, experimental design, statistical inference, computation, and graphics.
David Madigan - Pearson Advance

David Madigan

David Madigan received a bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Sciences and a Ph.D. in Statistics, both from Trinity College Dublin. He has previously worked for AT&T Inc., Soliloquy Inc., the University of Washington, Rutgers University, and SkillSoft, Inc. He has over 100 publications in such areas as Bayesian statistics, text mining, Monte Carlo methods, pharmacovigilance and probabilistic graphical models. He is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He recently completed a term as Editor-in-Chief of Statistical Science.

Lauren Hannah

Lauren Hannah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Columbia University. Dr. Hannah received a Ph.D. in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University, and an A.B. in Classics, again from Princeton University. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Hannah completed a postdoc at Duke in the Statistical Science Department. Her interests include machine learning, Bayesian statistics, and energy applications.

Eva Ascarza

Eva Ascarza is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Columbia Business School. She is a marketing modeler who uses tools from statistics and economics to answer marketing questions. Her main research areas are customer analytics and pricing in the context of subscription businesses. She specializes in understanding and predicting changes in customer behavior, such as customer retention and usage. Another stream of her research focuses on developing statistical methodologies to be used by marketing practitioners. She received her PhD from London Business School (UK) and a MS in Economics and Finance from Universidad de Navarra (Spain).

James Curley

About Me

Dr. Curley has very broad interests in behavioral development. He has conducted and published research at molecular, systems, organismal and evolutionary levels of analysis in both animals and humans. The focus of Dr. Curley’s lab at Columbia is on the development of social behavior. Dr. Curley is interested in how both inherited genetic variability and social experiences during development can shift individual differences in various aspects of social behavior and what the neuroendocrinological basis of these differences may be. He also researches the reliability and validity of social behavioral tests conducted in the laboratory and whether it is possible to utilize alternative statistical and methodological approaches to more appropriately assess social behavior. Dr Curley believes that it is critical to understand how the 'social brains' of humans and other animals have been differentially shaped by evolution and to acknowledge how this should better inform translational research.

What you will learn

  • How to craft messages and narratives that will resonate with your target audience to create your desired outcome.
  • How to use simple tools and skills to prepare and deliver memorable presentations.
  • How to use impactful images to enhance your presentation, communication, and messaging to impress your audience.

Program List

1
Storytelling in the Workplace

Course Details
Learn how to craft messages and narratives that will resonate with your target audience to create your desired outcome.

2
Public Speaking

Course Details
Build confidence as a speaker by learning how to use simple tools and skills to prepare and deliver memorable presentations.

3
Visual Presentation

Course Details
Learn how impactful images can enhance your presentation, communication and messaging to impress your audience.

Meet your instructors

Keith B. Jenkins

Vice President & Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion at Rochester Institute of Technology
Whatever the arena—professionally, in family, in ministry or in community—Keith’s desire, first and foremost, is to serve. Dr. Keith B. Jenkins, Professor of Communication in the School of Communication, is the Vice President & Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion at Rochester Institute of Technology. Keith, a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, received his B.A. in Communication from the University of Arkansas and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Communication from the Florida State University. Since joining RIT in 1992 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Dr. Jenkins has also served as RIT Faculty-in-Residence (1993 – 1995), RIT’s first Assistant Provost for Diversity (1999 – 2002), Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs in the School of Communication (2011 – 2016), and Interim Vice President and Associate Provost, Division for Diversity & Inclusion (2016 – 2017). He was also privileged to establish RIT’s Multicultural Center for Academic Success and the School of Communication’s Journalism Degree program. Jenkins is the recipient of many awards. Among the RIT awards are the 2010 Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching, the 2005 Isaac L. Jordan Pluralism Award, the 2004 RIT Diversity Trailblazer Award, the 1993-94 Provost’s Excellence in Teaching Award, the 1996 and 1997 Higher Education Opportunity Program “Community Professor” awards which recognize a professor who has made a difference in the lives of HEOP students at RIT, and NTID’s (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) 1995 Pluralism Award. Jenkins’ scholarly publications and presentations center around studies in intercultural communication, political and visual rhetoric, and the rhetoric of gospel song. Most recently, the focus of his research has been on pragmatism and the rhetoric of inclusion in Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign
Lori-Marra-Pearson-Advance

Lori Marra

Senior Lecturer, School of Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology
After a 30-year career in Technical Communication and Interactive Multimedia management, Lori joined RIT’s School of Communication full time in 2013. Professor Marra has a B.S. in Management from Nazareth College where she also double-minored in Philosophy and Studio Art. She also holds an MA in Philosophy from the University of Rochester. She focused on Stoic Ethics and her thesis is titled: The Mad Are All Unwise: The Practicality of Stoic Ethics. She teaches Communication, Public Speaking, and Technical Communication (with a focus on business communication for technical professionals). Lori is also an accomplished playwright and long-time member of the Dramatist Guild. She is advisor to the RIT Players, RIT’s theatre club and she is an artist in residence at MuCCC Theatre. For more on her playwriting career, visit her web site: lorimarra.com or follow her on Twitter @blueinkplayrite.