IGP and Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo Announce First-Ever Faculty Grant Awards

New York, NY — Columbia SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP) and Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo announced the recipients of IGP’s first-ever faculty grant awards, supporting innovative research at the intersection of global challenges, public policy, and academic inquiry.

The new awards mark an important milestone in IGP’s mission to bring world-class scholarship to bear on the most pressing issues of our time. Five projects, led by SIPA faculty and their collaborators, will explore topics ranging from the geopolitics of space and trade, to the deepening risks of generative AI, financial fraud, and deep-sea mining.

“These awards underscore IGP’s commitment to giving our faculty the resources needed to take on big and important questions related to policy,” said Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of Columbia SIPA and cofounder of IGP. “I’m proud that IGP can help catalyze pathbreaking work and that is how we will solve the defining challenges of this moment.”

The inaugural grant recipients are:

• Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics; John Mutter, professor of earth and environmental sciences and of international and public affairs – The Global Politics of Deep-Sea Mining: Convening an international conference and launching new research on the emerging regime for deep-sea mining.
• Erica Lonergan, assistant professor – Implications of the Space Domain for Future Great Power Dynamics: Exploring how the militarization of space could shape coercion and escalation in future crises, culminating in a closed-door workshop at IGP.
• Tamar Mitts, associate professor; Rumela Sen, lecturer – Impact of Generative AI on Public Trust in Democracy. Examining how deepfakes influence voter behavior and trust in India, the world’s largest democracy.
• Sharyn O’Halloran, George Blumenthal Professor of Political Economy; Thomas Groll, senior lecturer – A New Agenda for Trade Policy: Bringing together top scholars and practitioners for a major conference to inform an edited volume on the future of trade.
• Anya Schiffrin, senior lecturer and faculty codirector of SIPA’s Technology Policy and Innovation (TPI) concentration – Fighting Financial Scams: Hosting a conference to share best practices among regulators combating celebrity deepfakes and online financial fraud.

“These projects highlight the intellectual vitality and breadth of SIPA’s faculty as well as showcase the role of IGP as a hub for original and forward-looking research that is both rigorous but also relevant to policymakers,” said Jack Lew, former US Secretary of the Treasury, who is a professor of international and public affairs at SIPA and IGP Faculty Policy director.

IGP launched in 2023 to bridge the worlds of scholarship and practice by convening leaders, supporting research, and training the next generation of public policy professionals. With the introduction of these faculty grants, IGP deepens its investment in Columbia’s renowned faculty while amplifying their impact on local and global policy debates.

Media Contact: Lionel M. Beehner, Senior Editorial Director, [email protected], 212-814-2050