Cover of Columbia Scientist Edition 4, Fall 2025

Cover · On the Diversity of Pigeons, by Lauren Chen, Syosset High School. White gel pen.

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Columbia Scientist publishes opinion editorials, briefings, letters, science art, and podcast scripts by high school, undergraduate, and graduate students worldwide.

There is no submission fee, no publication fee, and no affiliation requirement. Every accepted piece is edited by our editorial board, published in the annual edition and on this site with a permanent citable page, and released under a CC BY 4.0 licence. You keep the copyright.

2026–2027 Edition: submissions close January 15, 2027; decisions by late April 2027.

What editors look for

  1. A specific claim, not a survey. The strongest pieces argue something. “Space mining repeats the pattern of colonial extraction” is a claim. “An overview of space mining” is not.
  2. Evidence a reader can check. Cite primary literature where you can. We publish your references, and readers follow them.
  3. Written for an intelligent non-specialist. Assume a curious reader with no background in your subfield. Define your terms once, then move.
  4. A reason it matters now. Timeliness is not a requirement, but the pieces that land tend to connect to something a reader has encountered.

About the journal

About & masthead

Columbia Scientist was founded in 2022 as the non-research journal of the Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal. Where CUSJ publishes original research, Columbia Scientist publishes the writing around it: argument, explanation, commentary, and art. Submissions come from students around the world and are reviewed by an undergraduate editorial board at Columbia, advised by a faculty board of ten Columbia professors.

Founded
2022
Editions
4
Authors in Edition 4
13
Institutions
6
Fees
None
Licence
CC BY 4.0

Faculty advisory board

  • Hugh DucklowProfessor of Earth & Environmental Sciences
  • Ivana HughesDirector of Frontiers of Science & Senior Lecturer in Discipline, Chemistry
  • Marko JovanovicAssistant Professor of Biological Sciences
  • Laura KaufmanProfessor of Chemistry
  • Patricia LindemannDirector of Undergraduate Studies & Lecturer in Discipline, Psychology
  • Kyle MandliProfessor of Applied Mathematics
  • Gerard ParkinProfessor of Chemistry
  • Ron PrywesProfessor of Biological Sciences
  • Rachel RosenAssociate Professor of Physics
  • Samuel SternbergAssistant Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics