Announcing Alliance Visiting Professors for the 2025-26 Academic Year
The Alliance Program is delighted to announce the appointment of seven distinguished Visiting Professors for the upcoming academic year of 2025-2026.
During their tenure, these esteemed faculty members will assume the role of Visiting Professors at the partner institution, dedicating either one semester or a few weeks to teaching a course and delivering public lectures. This invaluable opportunity not only fosters stronger connections between the participating schools but also facilitates the establishment of long-term partnerships for collaborative endeavors in future projects.
Visiting Professors 2025-26 Academic Year:
Eugene Wu is an associate professor of computer science at Columbia University. He is broadly interested in technologies that help users play with their data. His goal is for users at all technical levels to effectively and quickly make sense of their information. He is interested in solutions that ultimately improve the interface between users and data, and uses techniques borrowed from fields such as data management, systems, crowd sourcing, visualization, and HCI. Eugene Wu received his Ph.D. from MIT, B.S. from Cal, and was a postdoc in the AMPLab.
Dr. Matthias Preindl is Associate Professor of Power Electronic Systems at Columbia University in the City of New York. Preindl is motivated by the potential of electrical engineering to enable green technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable-energy power plants—which, in turn, can reduce CO2 emissions. After recently launching Columbia Engineering's Center for Advanced Electrification, Preindl looks forward to collaborating with our partners at École Polytechnique during his upcoming faculty exchange focusing on renewable energy and sustainable transporation systems.
Frank Andre Guridy is the Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies. He is also Professor of History and the Executive Director of the Eric H. Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia. He is an award-winning historian whose recent research has focused on sport history, urban history, and the history of American social movements. His most recent book, The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play (Basic Books, 2024) tells the story of the American stadium as an institution that has played a central role in American civic and political life and in the struggles for social justice from the 19th century until the present.
Junnan He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Sciences Po. He earned his PhD in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). His research focuses on econometrics and decision theory, with particular interests in model sparsity, variable selection in economic models, and random choice models. His work has been recognized with several awards and fellowships. Notably, he received a Dissertation Fellowship from WUSTL in 2017, and his dissertation research earned him the Best PhD SPEED Presentation award at the 20th OxMetrics User Conference.
Hélène Huber Yahi is Associate Professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in the Economics Department, the Sorbonne School of Economics. Huber Yahi specializes in Health Economics and Econometrics, as well as Behavioral Economics. Huber Yahi holds a PhD in Economics from University Paris Nanterre. Huber Yahi looks forward to her factulty exchange at Columbia University and engaging with students on topics of health economics, behavioral economics, theoretical microeconomics, and sustainable globalization.
Martin Genet is a Professor in the Mechanics Department and the Solid Mechanics Laboratory at École Polytechnique, and a member of the MΞDISIM team at INRIA in Palaiseau, France. With a background in computational mechanics and materials science, his research lies at the intersection of physics, computing, and biomedical engineering. He focuses on developing mechanical models of living tissues—particularly the heart and lungs—along with simulation and parameter estimation tools based on clinical data. His work aims to advance personalized medicine through digital twins for improved diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment planning in cardiology and pulmonology.