Top Medicine Researchers at Columbia University for 2026

Columbia University’s recent Medicine research spans clinical care, population health, and the methods that help turn data into better decisions. Over the past year, researchers across the university have published on topics ranging from maternal health and cancer care to infectious disease, mental health, transplantation, and health information systems.

Below, you’ll find a snapshot of scholars whose work has been especially active in this area, along with the themes that are shaping Columbia’s medical research community right now.

Featured Researchers

Jason D. Wright

Jason D. Wright’s recent Columbia University work centers on obstetrics and gynecology, reproductive medicine, and epidemiology, including studies on placenta accreta spectrum disorder, adolescent and young adult oncology screening, and severe maternal morbidity.

Activity over the last year: 47 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Nationwide Assessment of Gestational Age Distribution at Delivery for Patients With Placenta Accreta Spectrum Disorder (Feb 2025)
• Implementing Financial Screening for Adolescents and Young Adults Treated in the Outpatient Oncology Setting (Jun 2025)
• Standardized Criteria for Measuring Severe Maternal Morbidity in Placenta Accreta Spectrum Disorder (Apr 2025)

Rebecca Schnall

Rebecca Schnall has focused on infectious diseases, general health professions, and emergency medicine, with recent studies of mHealth tools for PrEP adherence, HIV self-management, and smoking cessation support.

Activity over the last year: 32 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• The mChoice App, an mHealth Tool for the Monitoring of Preexposure Prophylaxis Adherence and Sexual Behaviors in Young Men Who Have Sex With Men: Usability Evaluation (Jan 2025)
• The effect of a combined mHealth and community health worker intervention on HIV self-management (Jan 2025)
• Feasibility and Acceptability of the Sense2Quit App for Improving Smoking Cessation in PWH (Feb 2025)

Adam M. Brickman

Adam M. Brickman’s Columbia University research sits at the intersection of psychiatry and mental health, physiology, and imaging, with recent papers on tau PET, cognitive resilience in Down syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Activity over the last year: 42 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Tau PET positivity in individuals with and without cognitive impairment varies with age, amyloid-β status, APOE genotype and sex (Jul 2025)
• A neuropathology case report of a woman with Down syndrome who remained cognitively stable: Implications for resilience to neuropathology (Jan 2025)
• Resistance and resilience to Alzheimer's disease in Down syndrome (Apr 2025)

Sumit Mohan

Sumit Mohan’s recent work draws on transplantation, public health, and surgery, examining deceased donor kidney allocation, out-of-sequence placement, and related socioeconomic disparities.

Activity over the last year: 30 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Association between out-of-sequence allocation and deceased donor kidney nonuse across organ procurement organizations (Feb 2025)
• Underrecognition of deceased donor kidney out-of-sequence allocation due to increasing use of free-text coding (Apr 2025)
• Socioeconomic Disparities in Out-of-Sequence Placement of Deceased Donor Kidneys in the US (Jul 2025)

Jonas F. Ludvigsson

Jonas F. Ludvigsson’s Columbia University publications span gastroenterology, epidemiology, and genetics, including work on inflammatory bowel disease, diagnostic accuracy in national registers, and coeliac disease complications.

Activity over the last year: 26 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Global evolution of inflammatory bowel disease across epidemiologic stages (Apr 2025)
• Diagnostic accuracy in the Swedish national patient register: a review including diagnoses in the outpatient register (Mar 2025)
• Coeliac disease: complications and comorbidities (Jan 2025)

Sílvia S. Martins

Sílvia S. Martins has been publishing on epidemiology, public health, and pharmacology, with recent studies of Medicaid claims data quality, overdose mortality disparities, and fatal overdoses among people with HIV.

Activity over the last year: 31 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Completeness and quality of comprehensive managed care data compared with fee‐for‐service data in national Medicaid claims from 2001 to 2019 (Jan 2025)
• Intersectional Racial and Sex Disparities in Unintentional Overdose Mortality (Apr 2025)
• Fatal overdoses among people with HIV experiencing nonfatal overdoses in British Columbia, Canada (Jan 2025)

Maxim Topaz

Maxim Topaz’s recent Columbia University research connects health information management, ethics, and artificial intelligence, including studies on clinical note language, large language model benchmarking, and AI scribes in practice.

Activity over the last year: 22 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Stigmatizing and Positive Language in Birth Clinical Notes Associated With Race and Ethnicity (May 2025)
• A Brief Review on Benchmarking for Large Language Models Evaluation in Healthcare (Apr 2025)
• Beyond human ears: navigating the uncharted risks of AI scribes in clinical practice (Sep 2025)

Xiao Xu

Xiao Xu’s work brings together obstetrics and gynecology, oncology, and economics, with recent publications on fertility-preserving therapy for early-stage endometrial cancer and trends in uterine cancer incidence and mortality.

Activity over the last year: 23 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Survival After Fertility-Preserving Hormonal Therapy vs Hysterectomy for Early-Stage Endometrial Cancer (Aug 2025)
• Projected Trends in the Incidence and Mortality of Uterine Cancer in the United States (Jul 2025)
• Trends in uterine cancer incidence and mortality: insights from a natural history model (Jun 2025)

What Columbia University's Medicine Community Is Working On

The most common themes across Columbia University’s medicine research over the past year point to a strong emphasis on epidemiology, obstetrics and gynecology, and public health. That mix suggests a community that is not only studying disease patterns and outcomes, but also asking how care is delivered, how data are interpreted, and where disparities appear. Around those core areas, researchers are also advancing work in reproductive medicine, infectious diseases, transplantation, oncology, gastroenterology, and health information systems, reflecting a broad and applied medical research portfolio.

• Epidemiology - seen across 3 of the featured researchers
• Obstetrics and Gynecology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Reproductive Medicine - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
• Infectious Diseases - seen across 1 of the featured researchers

Together, these projects show a research community working across specialties while keeping a close eye on real-world care, equity, and evidence quality. If you’re exploring similar topics, this kind of overview can also help you spot collaborators, compare subfields, or organize your own manuscript workflow with tools like Resub.

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