Columbia Engineering Lecture Series in AI
2026-03-27 10:30 - 12:00 UTC
“Integrating Past and Present in Continual Learning”
Continual learning aims to bridge the gap between typical human and machine-learning environments. The continual setting does not have separate training and testing phases, and instead models are evaluated online while learning novel concepts and tasks. The most capable current AI systems struggle to learn new knowledge sequentially without forgetting old ones. Challenging research questions include how to rapidly assess a learner system’s abilities and how to most efficiently train it to improve on a sequence of tasks. I will describe recent progress on these questions, across various research groups in ARNI, our NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence. Finally we will consider open issues and challenges in continual learning.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Richard Zemel is the Trianthe Dakolias Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. He is the Director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence (ARNI), and was the co-founder and inaugural Research Director of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. His awards include an AI Lifetime Achievement Award (CAIA) and a Pioneer of AI Award (NVIDIA). His research contributions include foundational work on systems that learn useful representations of data with little or no supervision; graph-based machine learning; and algorithms for fair and robust machine learning.
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Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Start Me Up Bootcamp with Columbia Engineering
2026-04-10
Join a select group of entrepreneurs for a two-week hybrid program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Participants are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews, attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs.
Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, this program helps students and researchers identify new ways to apply research to solve global challenges. Teams that complete this bootcamp may be eligible to receive conference travel or stipend funding, including eligibility to apply for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program. Click here to explore eligibility and expectations.
Spring 2026 Dates
April 24, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
May 1, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
May 8, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Rolling admissions, apply by April 10th

IDE x CORE Entrepreneurship in Hard Tech: A Conversation with Alumni Founders
2026-04-14 17:30 - 19:30
Join Columbia Engineering and CORE for a candid look at building a hard-tech startup before the pitch decks and headlines. Hear from young Columbia founders about ideation, finding mentors and co-founders, testing early ideas, and navigating the early stages of a tech venture as Columbia students. The talk will feature Vignesh Karthik and Valentina Marini Fichera, and will be moderated by Katherine Brown, SEAS ’28.
This event will include Q&A, networking and mentorship opportunities, and dinner will be provided.
When: April 14, 2026, 5:30 – 7:30pm
Where: Columbia Engineering, Mudd Building, Carleton Commons

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Lecture Series in AI: Byron Cook, PhD, VP/Distinguished Scientist, Amazon-AWS
2026-04-17 10:30 - 12:00
Schedule:
10:30-11:00am Check-in
11:00-12:00pm Lecture
Advance registration required for both Columbia non-affiliates and Columbia affiliates.
About the Speaker
Byron Cook is a vice president and distinguished scientist at Amazon, program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and a professor at the University College London (UCL). He is well-known for his work on automatic methods for proving program term ination and the Terminator termination prover, showcasing that automatic termination proving was impossible. He contributed to Microsoft’s SLAM and Static Driver Verifier. Bryan Cook revived automatic program verification research in various ways and founded Amazon’s Automated Reasoning Group (ARG). He has received multiple awards for his research contributions, notably the Roger Needham Award and the distinction of Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
About the Lecture
“Neurosymbolic AI at AWS”
This talk will discuss work at AWS to bring the power of agentic/generative AI with the safety and correctness of formal reasoning.
Campus Access
In accordance with the University’s current visitor guidelines, all non-Columbia guests will receive a QR code within a few hours of the event date. The code will be sent to you via email from CU Guest Access and must be presented for campus entry, along with a government-issued ID.
Accessibility
Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend an event at Columbia University, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212.854.2388 or access@columbia.edu.
Photography/Videography
Columbia Engineering reserves the right to capture and use images (including video, photo, audio) of student participants at this event in its current or future marketing materials. These materials include but are not limited to: social media, digital and/or print posters, email and web-based materials. By attending and participating in this event, you are consenting to having your image captured for these purposes. If you have concerns about your likeness being used, please reach out to engineeringcommunications@columbia.edu and we will accommodate your request.

Funding Opportunity: Ignition Grants 2026
2026-04-30
Ignition grants assist Columbia University engineering students in launching new businesses, social and not-for-profit ventures. Ignition grants support the initial stages of early venture development from formation, IP protection, and incubation to building prototypes and creating proofs of concept. Teams that have won the Technology Challenge or received Ignition Grants in the past will not be eligible. Applicants must have a current SEAS student on the team to apply. Teams who applied to Startup Columbia Round 2 in the Tech Challenge are welcome to update their applications before resubmitting.
Deadline: Friday, April 30
APPLY HERE
