A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Abstract

Dear readers,
 The 2015–16 academic year saw many great developments at the Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal. Most notably, our team brought the new Columbia Research Scholars Journal from concept to first issue. The mission of this new journal is to connect high school researchers from around the world, so that they can meet fellow scientists within their respective fields and share their results. This year, we were amazed to see a diverse array of high-quality research projects, from plant-microbial fuel cells to visual adaptation in schizophrenia. The final selection of papers includes work in biology, chemistry, environmental engineering, computer science, and physics.
 In this year’s CUSJ Spring Symposium, held on April 10th, we were excited to welcome many undergraduate researchers in the New York area as well as some of our most distinguished high school CRSJ contributors. For the first time, we held a poster contest designed to reward great communication skills and novel research. The Awards of Excellence this year went to Justin Cheung and Andrew Saydjari.
 This year’s edition of the CUSJ includes four papers from Columbia University undergraduates in the areas of biomedicine and computational genomics. In the past, our policy has been to publish only research conducted by Columbia undergraduates. In order for the CUSJ to grow, we have decided to review submissions from undergraduates anywhere in the world.
 The CUSJ, CRSJ, and our successful events this year were made possible by the dedicated and meticulous work of our editing team and CEO Helen Yang. We all felt privileged to examine so many insightful research projects, and our new editors gained significant experience in reviewing submissions for two different journals. I am confident that next year’s board will uphold our rigorous review standards and successfully take on new ventures in our mission to bring science to the public.
 –Sean Ballinger