Faculty

Shanny Peer has been Director of the Columbia Maison Française since 2009. She earned a Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of French Studies in 1992 and taught French Studies for ten years, at the University of Vermont and then NYU, where she received a Golden Dozen Award for teaching excellence. She was Director of Policy Programs at the French-American Foundation and worked briefly at Families and Work Institute before joining Columbia.

Robert Pollack, Professor of Biological Sciences and Director of University Seminars, joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1978. His teaching focuses on the application of knowledge of the natural world to problems that require decisions which cannot be based solely on such data-driven knowledge.

Christina Duffy Ponsa is a legal historian whose work focuses on the constitutional and international legal history of American empire.

John Rajchman works in the areas of art history, architecture, and continental philosophy. Professor Rajchman is an Adjunct Professor and Director of Modern Art M.A. Programs in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. He has previously taught at Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, and The Cooper Union, among others. He is a Contributing Editor for Artforum and is on the board of Critical Space.

Bruce Robbins works mainly in the areas of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, literary and cultural theory, and postcolonial studies.

David Rosner, PhD, MPH, focuses on research at the intersection of public health and social history and the politics of occupational disease and industrial pollution. He has been actively involved in lawsuits on behalf of cities, states and communities around the nation who are trying to hold the lead industry accountable for past acts that have resulted in tremendous damage to America's children.

Emmanuelle Saada’s main field of research and teaching is the history of the French empire in the 19th and 20th century, with a specific interest in law.

Sailaja Sastry is a lecturer in the Department of English at Barnard College. She received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, completing her dissertation, Bureaucratic Belonging: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Literary Creation of the South Asian American Subject, under the supervision of Professor Gauri Viswanathan