Columbia’s alumni proved their talents with numerous Emmy nominations

this year.

Nine Columbia alumni received Creative Emmy Award nominations by the Academy of Television of Arts and Sciences

last month.

The winners were announced Aug. 21, and two alumni took home awards.

“We are always happy when our alumni are recognized for their work in the industry,” said Columbia President Warrick L. Carter.

Steve Meyer, class of ’88, won an award for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series for his work on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Chris McKay, class of ’91, won an Emmy for Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program for his involvement on “Robot Chicken: Full-Assed Christmas Special,” which aired on the Cartoon Network.

“‘Robot Chicken’ has been nominated so many times, I wasn’t too excited about it,” McKay said in an e-mail interview. “I was actually pretty surprised we won, but when I looked at whom we were up against and they sucked, I wasn’t surprised anymore.”

McKay said he’s currently working on a pilot for Disney and a script for hip-hop music mogul Russell Simmons.

Meyer, who majored in television production, is the lead visual effects supervisor for Zioc Studios in Valencia, Calif.

Meyer said he came to work on “CSI” because his company was on contract with the show.

“They asked me to help out because of my experience—‘Can you jump back on the computer to help us out?’ And it ended up being the one that won the Emmy Award, so that worked out well,” Meyer said.

Other alumni received nominations for their work on shows such as “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Survivor,” “The Tonight Show” and “30 Rock.”

HBO Films—whose president Len Amato is also a Columbia alumnus—received 35 nominations for its film “Temple Grandin”

among others.