Skoltech Faculty Prospectus 2014

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FACULTY PROSPECTUS AUGUST 2014

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The new edition of the Skoltech prospectus is now available online. You are welcome to read through this brochure and learn about members of our faculty and their various research projects: bio-medicinal therapies, computer vision, hydrocarbon recovery and renewable energy, quantum physics and string theory, satellite systems and space exploration, composite materials and manufacturing, innovation and product realization, and many more. The prospectus outlines collaboration with leading international partners (such as MIT) and Russian institutions, current developments and past milestones. It also provides a look at Skoltech’s vision, as well as at our concrete development plans. Feel free to share this document, using the social media buttons or provided link. We hope you find the reading as informative and inspiring as our team did.

Transcript of Skoltech Faculty Prospectus 2014

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F A C U L T Y P R O S P E C T U S

AUGUS T 2014

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Welcome to Skoltech

I’d like to introduce you to Skoltech — a new model for Russian high-er education, bridging science and innovation to impact the world we live in. We are bringing together a fusion of exceptional Russian and international talent, creating key partnerships, and a world-class infrastructure to make of Skoltech an institute capable of becoming an engine of economic growth. Our systematic approach for creating impact in society sets us apart. We directly engage with industry and society to understand their needs, then educate graduate students and conduct research to strategically improve standards of living and companies’ global competitiveness.

In just two years, we have conducted a stakeholders analysis, de-veloped a comprehensive research strategy, and founded six Centers for Research, Education and Innovation to address the needs of our stakeholders — businesses, government and society. Our faculty includes top researchers and educators from around the world, in-cluding Prof. Anton Berns, Prof. Victor Kotelianski and Nobel Laure-ate Sidney Altman. We have also created opportunities for talented Russians to return to Russia — a number of our professors are from the greater Russian Diaspora. We’ve launched educational programs in IT, Energy, Space and Biomedicine, matriculated students from 19 countries, and plan to inaugurate more Masters and Ph.D. programs.

Our students have already demonstrated their unique potential by founding their own companies, securing funding from Venture Capi-talists, and entering Top 10 in international competitions such as the CleanTech Challenge and MIT’s 100k Competition. We eagerly look forward to what they will achieve in their two years at Skolkovo.

Our list of partners and friends is growing with every year. Since founding our key partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (MIT), we have formed ties with a number of the world’s other leading universities. The Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, St. Petersburg State University and the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) are just a few of the institutional pillars on which we are building our foundation.

We have a successful track record of collaboration on research and educational programs with industrial partners, such as United Aircraft Company, System Operator of the United Power System and CISCO. Despite our short history, we have grown rapidly in the last two years and laid the cornerstone for our future community of 200 professors, 440 postdocs, and 1,200 students. Please read on to un-derstand why I am so confident in saying that at Skoltech, we are doing more than graduating leaders, we are preparing agents of change.

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to Skoltech, its programs and its faculty.

As most educators would readily acknowledge, the predominant picture of a university as primar-ily a place of passive instruction imparted through received knowledge is a relic of the past. The mod-ern university is a center of critical enquiry for the purpose of questioning received wisdom and open-ing new frontiers. The modern university is thus an incubator of innovation and paradigm shifts. And its soul is its faculty, its legacy its students.

Skoltech is an ambitious project by the Russian Federation to bring together the rich intellectual traditions and accomplishments of its talented cit-izens and the best practices and developments in international science and technology to establish an innovation-driven Russian graduate university with an international footprint. It seeks to combine re-search, education and innovation seamlessly with-out the confines of artificial barriers imposed by traditional disciplinary divisions.

A great university is not an isolated center of learning, but a microcosm in constant and dynamic interactions with an ever-changing world around it from which it draws its inspiration and defines its mission. Institution building therefore never ceases even in the case of an “established” university. And in the case of a university at its birth, like Skoltech, the challenges are formidable, but truly exciting and energizing and are an opportunity to define the future.

We are indeed very fortunate to have the strong and enthusiastic support of, and active participa-tion by, very distinguished scholars, researchers and innovators from around the world. Our faculty members, Founding Faculty Fellows and academic administrators come from many parts of the world as well as from the Russian Federation and the Rus-sian diaspora.

I welcome you to learn about our faculty and pro-grams and join us in this endeavor!

Edward Crawley President

Raj RajagopalanProvost

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Table of contents

4Skoltech Explained

8Research

10Campus and Facilities

CREDITS

TEXT AND CONTENT

DEVELOPMENT

Ilan Goren

GRAPHIC CONCEPT AND DESIGN

Denis Landin

COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF

Herzog and DeMeuron

IMAGES COURTESY OF Skolkovo Foundation, Skoltech, Ilan Goren and Flickr users (under Cre-ative Commons License, see images on pages for credit and attribution)

PLEASE NOTE

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information in this Faculty Prospectus at the time of going to print. However, changes and developments are part of the life of the university and research centers and alterations may occur to programs, staff and tracks described in the prospectus. Please refer to the Skoltech and Fac-ulty websites for the most up-to-date information.

http://www.skoltech.ru/en/http://faculty.skoltech.ru/

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12Meet Members of our Faculty:Iskander AkhatovNatalia BerloffAnton BernsJanusz BialekZafer GürdalVictor KotelianskiRaj RajagopalanKonstantin SeverinovKeith StevensonAnatoly DymarskyAlessandro GolkarVictor LempitskyAlexander UstinovKelvin Willoughby

35Partnership with MIT

36Careers and Positions

37Funding

38Students

40Skoltech Milestones

41Life in Moscow

42Russian: Say it по-русски

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Skoltech supports a MULTIDISCIPLINARY

APPROACH. Cross-cutting and innovative collaboration are core to our mission

Skoltech Explained

Established in 2011, Skoltech is a PRIVATE

GRADUATE RESEARCH

UNIVERSITY in Skolkovo, a suburb of Moscow, Russia, with English as the language of instruction

The OPPORTUNITIES we offer are based on what we call the “triple-helix model”: a model that weaves INNOVATION seamlessly into RESEARCH and EDU-

CATION

We bring IDEAS to IMPACT

society and business, while emphasizing FUNDAMENTAL research of high standards. We aim to solve real prob-lems in Russia and the world. PRACTICAL use of science is key

The university and its Centers for Research, Education and Innova-tion (CREIs) address critical challenges in 6 MAJOR “TRACKS”:

INFORMATION, BIOMEDICINE,

ENERGY, SPACE, NUCLEAR

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY and SCIENCE CUTTING

ACROSS THESE AREAS

The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a unique university. To help you get started, let us explain the basics.

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Skoltech Explained

We believe that CREATIVE PEOPLE must have INDEPENDENCE of thought and academic FREEDOM

Skoltech is a PARTNER

OF MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technolo-gy). We work together on research, curricu-lum and planning, and innovation

Our FACULTY, many of whom are senior, INTERNATIONALLY REPUTED

ACADEMIC LEADERS, hail from VARIOUS COUNTRIES and BACKGROUNDS — east and west, north and south, academia and industry

Skoltech is an indispensable part of the SKOLKOVO ECOSYSTEM that comprises a COMPLETE HIGH-TECH

CITY with a number of PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL

R&D CENTERS and START-

UP INCUBATORS

A CENTER FOR

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND

INNOVATION (CEI) operates at Skoltech. Its main goal is to make Skoltech AN ENGINE OF

ECONOMIC GROWTH by rapidly implementing ideas to create impact, by engaging students and faculty in E&I (entrepreneurship and innovation), and by accelerating research outcomes toward commercialization and broader social impact

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Skoltech Explained

Building a research university from scratch is exciting and requires pioneers. With the help of our partner, the Skolkovo Foundation, a lot has been achieved since we broke the ground — now it is time to look ahead, to new challenges.

IN 2016 a NEW CAMPUS building is planned to open its doors

By 2020 we aim to:Establish all of our 15 Centers for Research Education and InnovationEmploy 200 professorsHost 440 postdoctoral associatesEducate 1200 students

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Skoltech Explained

IF YOU THINK that building a new, innovation-driven technological university from the ground up is a rare opportunity — YOU ARE RIGHT.

IF YOU CARE about your scientific independence, are passionate about cross-cutting research, want to make an impact on real-world issues and enjoy teaming up with global industries and researchers from top international universities and research institutions — WE ARE

RIGHT FOR YOU.

IF YOU HAVE a pioneering spirit — YOU ARE RIGHT FOR US.

3 THINGS YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT US

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ENGLISH is Skoltech’s WORKING LANGUAGE. But in our labs, cafeterias and lecture halls you can also hear Swedish, Dutch, Ital-ian, Hebrew, Urdu — and Russian.

Among our INTERNATIONAL

PARTNERS are institutions such as MIT, Whitehead Institute, Groningen School of Medicine, Delft University of Technology, KU Leuven, Technical University of Berlin and others.

We are GROWING: recruit-ing, devising new edu-cational programs and expanding our CREIs.

WE ARE RECRUITING FACULTY AT A RAPID PACE AND HOPE YOU WILL APPLY. DROP US A LINE AT [email protected], CHECK THE INFORMATION ON APPLICATION, POSITIONS AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES ON PAGES 36-37 OR VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINKS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Positions/Listings http://sktech-search.mit.edu/ http://sktech-postdoc.mit.edu/

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GUIDELINES FOR THE OPERATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF RESEARCH BY CREI PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE

Grant and contract administration

Expected or allowable research expendi-tures (faculty, student, postdoc, and researcher salaries; equipment; travel; materials and services, etc.)

Management of salary costs

Reporting require-ments (technical, fiscal, equipment and property, intellectual property)

Financial review and control requirements

ResearchThe major component of the Skoltech concept is the establishment of Centers for Research, Education and Innovation (CREIs). These are our main scientific growth engines.

Skoltech has defined six priority areas for its research efforts — Biomedicine, IT, Energy, Space, Nuclear, as well as science cut-ting across these areas (e.g. ma-terials). The SKOLTECH CENTERS FOR

RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND INNOVATION

(CREIS) are the key building blocks in the effort to develop a world-class graduate university that combines education, research and innova-tion seamlessly. Skoltech plans to form 15 CREIs in the six research priority areas.

The CREIs pursue LEADING RE-

SEARCH in their fields, deliver WORLD-

CLASS GRADUATE EDUCATION PROGRAMS and generate results that can form the basis for INNOVATION AND ENTREPRE-

NEURSHIP ACTIVITIES at Skoltech and in Russian industry. Importantly, CREIs will build capacity of all kinds at Skoltech, and will be designed to have broad impact on Russia.

The establishment of CREIs in CLOSE COOPERATION WITH ONE (OR MORE)

INTERNATIONAL AND RUSSIAN ACADEMIC

PARTNERS is done because we believe this is the most efficient and fastest way to establish a new world-class graduate research university, com-plementing the existing research and educational system in Russia

and DEVELOPING A GATEWAY between Russia and the rest of the world.

The Skoltech CREIs embody the increasingly important collabora-tive and multi-university research partnerships required for multi-disciplinary advanced research. Each CREI has Skoltech as the lead university (reflecting the flow of funding) with major universities or research institutions as partners. Thus, Skoltech researchers are brought into collaboration with re-searchers from both international and Russian institutions. For exam-ple, Skoltech cooperated with the University of Groningen and Vavilov Institute of General Genetics to es-tablish its first CREI.

Our first CREI, out of a total of fifteen, focuses on one of science’s Holy Grails: Stem Cell Research. The center’s team of researchers tackle the most pressing questions related to these “magic cells” capa-ble of transforming into expert cells, which could help treat currently in-curable diseases — and save mil-lions of lives.

Skoltech’s biomedicine students attend classes at the center, lo-cated at University Medical Center Groningen.

Professor Konstantin Severinov, Associate Dean of Faculty, gives a presentation to students and faculty

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Research

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR APPROACH TO RESEARCH

1 2 3Skoltech supports a mul-tidisciplinary approach. Cross-cutting and inno-vative collaborations are core to our mission.

We believe that scientists must have independence of thought and academic freedom.

The Skoltech Centers for Research, Education and Innovation (CREIs) support practical implementation of science in six major “Tracks”: Information, Biomed-icine, Energy, Space, Nuclear Science and Technology and Science cutting across these areas.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://vimeo.com/63611829http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Life-at-Skoltech/Research http://www.skoltech.ru/en/crei/

Professor Raj Rajagopalan, Provost (right) and professor Victor Kotelianski, Director, Skoltech Center for Infectious Diseases and Functional Genomics, chat during the Toward Therapies of the Future conference, May 2014

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WATCH THE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btQN2BX2IFg

Campus and FacilitiesIf you build it, they will come, the visionary protagonist from the film “Field of Dreams” famously believed. So do we.

We are building Skoltech’s new campus from the ground up — and the professors and students are coming. Master’s and PhD students, faculty members and postdoctoral researchers hailing from more than 20 countries, have already set base at the newly con-structed Hypercube, our current hub. But in 2016, when the remark-able new main building opens, Skoltech’s development program will reach a key milestone. Life and work here will become more streamlined, inspiring — and fun.

The gleaming white campus, lo-cated in western Moscow, was de-signed by world-renowned Swiss architects Herzog and de-Meuron. They envisioned a 60-hectare com-plex that will house an array of fa-cilities specifically designed for the needs of students and faculty mem-bers. State-of-the-art lecture halls, top notch labs, user-centered pub-lic spaces and a library enveloped with tall windows and awash with natural light (yes, even in winter), all lay the ground for interdisciplinary research, academic programs and technological innovation.

With R&D centers operated by in-dustry leaders such as Cisco, Micro-soft, IBM and Intel only minutes away from the main building, reaching the business and startup community will be a matter of picking up a cappuc-cino at the cafeteria — and going for a stroll. Residential and shopping ar-eas have already begun to rise from the ground and a high-speed rail link to Moscow is planned. When it opens, a cosmopolitan city buzzing with en-ergy will be just a short train ride away from Skoltech’s new home.

Our field of dreams is taking shape.

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Campus

4 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CAMPUS

21 3 4Some of our professors take part in designing their own offices and labs.

The Renova Labs building is scheduled for delivery in 2015 for equipment and lab set-up. It will house a multi-disciplinary environment, suitable for ma-terials and chemical laboratories, biomedical and stem cell research, microelectronics, and testing equipment with heights allowable to 8 meters and maximum floor loading of up to 10,000 kN. The facility is equipped with laboratory gases, fume hoods and in-ceiling delivery systems.

Internal spaces are designed for maximum overlap among the 6 core, science and technology “Tracks”– energy, biomed-ical, IT, space and nuclear science and technology.

Architects have created a web of pedestrian links and quiet yards. The vi-sion: chance encounters made easy.

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Meet Members of our FacultyProfessor Iskander Akhatov Director, Skoltech Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery

“Let’s face it”, sitting in a Moscow café, Iskander Akhatov fiddles with a polystyrene coffee cup, “oil will remain the main energy source for ages.”

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He takes a gulp from the steamy cappuccino.

“I left behind a very comfortable position in an American university in order to come back to Russia. I guess you can say that you need to be a crazy realist to make such a move. Well, perhaps I am that crazy realist.” Akhatov asked for a leave of absence from North Dakota State University, where he holds a ten-ured position.

“Cheap, high-quality oil does not jump out of the ground and into the gas tanks anymore,” he continues. “We are entering the age of un-conventional reserves, where we will mostly extract energy that is squeezed in shale rocks and trapped in nano pores. If you want oil drops to be pushed out of the ground you will need to learn much about the physics and chemistry of these mul-tiscale objects.” The Russian-born professor, who moved to the US 13 years ago, cups the coffee. It now reaches drinkable temperature.

Hydrocarbon recovery should be at the forefront of science, he says, with an approach that is sober and unflinching.

“The only way to tackle complex IT, physics and engineering issues that are inherent to this age of unconven-tional reserves we are entering is to build a hub which collaborates with

major energy companies and inter-national schools.

“Among the center’s list of ac-ademic partners are UT Austin, TA&MU (USA), University of Calgary (Canada), Herriot-Watt (UK), all of-fering world class petroleum engi-neering programs. These will help build state of the art labs in Skoltech which will tackle complex issues like geomechanics, chemical and thermal-enhanced recovery.”

Here we will be exchanging knowledge with the international scene, teach and develop skills. As for American academics and multinational companies, Skoltech opens the door to a new field where they can apply their knowledge and skills. Everybody gains.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Iskander-Akhatov

SKOLTECH CENTER FOR HYDROCARBON RECOVERY AIMS TO

Develop an international research program in oil and gas staffed by highly qualified researchers and equipped with up-to-date laboratory equipment

Recruit new faculty and develop an interna-tionally competitive graduate program in oil and gas.

Improve Skoltech graduate students’ skills through graduate schools of collaborating universities

Focus specifically on Geomechanics, geo-physical exploration and monitoring of hy-drocarbon production; Shale oil: development of new technologies for Russian shale oil fields (Bazhenov, Domaink); Heavy oil: development of new technologies for Russian heavy oil fields; Unconventional gas: development of new technologies gas hydrates and other new gas reserves.

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

1 2 3Professor Akhatov plans to spend his free time in Moscow “going to the ballet with my family” and visiting the incredi-ble monasteries around Moscow, the so-called “Golden Ring”.

His work focuses on micro- and nano-meter-scale fluid dynamics; emulsions, suspensions, and complex fluids in micro and nano-channels and porous media; dynamics and acoustics of bubbles and bubbly liquids; multiphase systems; applications of above listed research subjects to the oil & gas, materials, and biomedicine industries.

Fargo, North Dakota, was home for him and his family for more than a decade. Akhatov saw the film and knows the popu-lar TV series about a sinister murderer who commits grisly crimes. “Fargo the movie is brilliant and very hard. But real Fargo is the safest town in the US. It is the best and cleanest place to raise a family”.

“I talked to Russian oil companies, I understand their needs,” he explains, “Russian companies have two options. One is to buy expertise from service providers abroad which is expensive and has to be done over and over again. The other option is to come to Skoltech.

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Meet Members of our Faculty

Professor Natalia Berloff Dean of Faculty

For someone who unleashed quantum tornadoes and then taught them how to dance in a fluid trapped on a semiconductor chip, Professor Natalia Berloff comes across as a remarkably calm person.

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NATALIA BERLOFF’S RESEARCH INTERESTS FOCUS ON

Nonlinear waves

Superfluidity

Quantum fluids

Bose-Einstein condensates

Superfluid turbulence

Coherence in non-equi-librium quantum systems

Strong light-matter coupling in solid-state systems

Finite temperature atomic condensates

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HER

1 2 3Read her description of her famous “quan-tum tornadoes” research: “Being half-light and half-matter these particles are feath-er-light and move quickly around, sloshing and cascading like water in a mountain river.” Now we can challenge anyone to say that mathematicians and physicists lack a sense of poetry.

She brought back her children from the UK to Moscow because:“It is a big vibrant city — it offers ice skating, theater, and an opportunity for my kids to have a stronger sense of self identity”.

A word of advice to for-eign faculty: “Once you get to know your way (around Moscow) a whole world will open up to you. There are lifelong friendships to be made”.

Along with colleagues from Cam-bridge University the Russian born researcher created hundreds of twister-like vortexes and studied a new quantum particle called polari-ton. The technology could be used to measure movements to astonishing precision. So perhaps it is no sur-prise that Skoltech’s Dean of Faculty is unfazed by challenges. Even un-precedented ones.

“We would like to build a unique gateway to western tech science and skills. That’s what sets Skoltech apart from other Russian academic institutions. When Russian indus-try will need western expertise we would be the go-to place“, says the applied mathematician heading the Cambridge-Skoltech Quantum Fluids Laboratory (CSQF). She now plans to develop mirror labs — one in Moscow, the other in Cambridge.

Berloff seems to be constantly on the go. When we catch her for a short conversation she is in between trips — giving summer classes in Cuba, assessing PhD candidates in Fin-land and attending a conference in Germany. She splits the rest of her time between Cambridge and Mos-cow. But when asked about break-

ing travel records or centuries’ old glass ceilings — Berloff was the first ever woman appointed Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 800 years — she prefers to steer the conversation away from personal milestones.

“As for faculty, our mission is to track and retain the best. We need people with background and ed-ucation that do not exist in other places. And then we need to create a cross-cutting environment where they can prosper. Only then do you know you have succeeded. If you follow in someone else’s footsteps nothing will happen”.

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Natalia-Berloff

“There are excellent schools in Russia but the fluidity and flexibility offered by Skoltech is a unique advantage. We don’t have rigidly defined departments so students can fine-tune their own study program — starting, for example, in the energy track and then switching to IT.”

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Meet Members of our Faculty

Professor Anton Berns Director, Skoltech Center for Stem Cell Research

When Anton Berns was ap-proached by the president of MIT with a tentative offer to join Skoltech, the Dutch chemist and molecular ge-neticist was caught a little off guard: ”I had no idea what he was talking about”.

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But then Berns, who holds a se-nior position with the Netherlands Cancer Institute and is one of the world’s leading scientists in using genetically modified mice to study cancer, heard from another prom-inent name in the field. It was Ru-dolf Jaenisch, a biologist at MIT’s Whitehead Institute. “He told me that Skoltech is a great project. That got me interested,” says Pro-fessor Berns. He is now the direc-tor of the Skoltech Center for Stem Cell Research.

The Stem Cells CREI (Center for Research Education and Innovation) which Berns heads, is the result of a collaboration between Skoltech and a string of international and Russian partners. Along with the Moscow based institute, which leads the pro-ject, partners include institutions such as ERIBA (European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing) at the University of Groningen and the Hubrecht Institute (both based in Netherlands), the Whitehead In-stitute, and the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

“I’ve been on the board of many institutions and what I like about

Skoltech is the CREI concept”, says Berns. “Building research centers with the direct support of external partners who are motivated to do so because they get substantial fund-ing — this is a great idea. That was the most important motivation to join.”

As for the major challenges and tasks ahead, Berns stresses that “biomedicine is a very collaborative activity. It is our goal to facilitate an exchange of people and materi-als - and be able to ship everything around. We might also consider creating a niche in Skoltech that is slightly less dependent on ordering and receiving materials, which is currently still a challenge.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Anton-Berns

SKOLTECH CENTER FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH AIMS TO DEVELOP

Deeper insight into the science and applications of stem cells as well as the techniques to study them in a data-intensive world, targeted towards the development of new therapies and drugs.

Reprogramming ap-proaches for producing human and mouse iPS cells.

Propagation of adult stem cells from various tissues and organs.

Differentiation pro-grams and methods for producing differentiated cells from pluripotent cells.

Deeper understanding of genome stability and epigenetic changes during reprogramming, proliferation and differ-entiation.

Insight into gene networks involved in stem cell regulation and regeneration.

Stem cell models to study inherited and ac-quired human diseases.

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

1 2 3Professor Berns’ work focuses on mouse models of cancer, specif-ically cells-of-origin of small cell and non-small cell lung cancer; thoracic tumors; and gene therapy.

For over 30 years, Berns has used viruses as a key tool for cancer research, a strategy which in turn has led to the identification of genes critical for cancer and stem cell maintenance.

He describes Skoltech as “an opportunity to join an exciting project before I get some rest. I plan to stop working when I turn 75”.

“But my most important task right now is to recruit excellent people”, he points out. “Since I have a track record of running and managing institutes, I want to help Skoltech find motivated people that share the vision on which Skoltech is built.”

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Meet Members of our Faculty

Professor Janusz Bialek Director, Skoltech Center for Energy Systems

“Here is what I would like to achieve in Moscow”, says Janusz Bialek a few days before he moves home from Durham, the UK, to Russia. “The Energy Systems CREI will become a world leader in research”.

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He pauses for a breath. One has to wonder whether Bialek, who had moved from Poland to the UK 25 years ago and went on to become one of Britain’s leading experts on power systems and an advocate for a sober approach to the usage of electricity, would settle for this not-so-short list of ambitious goals. But there is more. “The center will actively collaborate with the best

universities in the world, like MIT, Caltech and many others.”

Generally speaking, Bialek’s re-search deals with achieving stable, secure, sustainable and economic supply of electricity while meet-ing the challenges of reducing CO2 emissions. Yet over the years he has steadily and constantly expanded his fields of interest and refuses to stick to rigidly defined disciplines.

“You simply achieve better results by conducting cross-cutting re-search,” he explains. “Science tends to be a bit compartmentalized, but we will try a different approach. At Skoltech, scientific boundaries are very thin, and all the CREIs will col-laborate. For example, I have been approached by a Skoltech string theorist, one of the best in the world, who would like to team up. There is no other place in the world where a string theorist can work together with power engineers. We like to think of ourselves as a kind of a su-per-group”, he chuckles.

SKOLTECH CENTER FOR ENERGY SYSTEMS AIMS TO

Bring the new science and engineering needed to address the grand challenges of Russian energy systems, includ-ing reliability, efficiency, regulations, and inter-dependencies with other energy infrastructures.

Develop new computa-tional tools and power electronics, robust net-work architectures and risk-aware algorithms for optimization and control to achieve more flexibility and reliability.

Address undergoing transformational chang-es in Russian energy systems which require economic growth, stronger coupling and competition with other options for energy deliv-ery, expansion to remote areas, and improved risk-assurance of con-trol in transmission and distribution.

“Our center will help transform the Russian energy industry so that it can innovate and overcome its problems. It will be an interdisciplinary center, where not only power engineers, but also mathematicians, statisticians, economists and social scientists will make an impact. And we are going to do it.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Janusz-Bialek

2 3Professor Bialek’s work focuses on power system analysis, economics and dynamics: technical and economic integration of renewables in power sys-tems; and the prevention of electricity blackouts.

His wife is a sculptor. “The Moscow art scene is so vibrant, that I had no prob-lem convincing her to move here. I speak Russian, and I think we both grasp the gap between the stereo-type of a chaotic post-sovi-et Russia and real life”.

In an interview with New Statesman magazine Bialek highlighted the oil-rich Gulf States’ drive towards energy efficiency: “In Kuwait in the summer, energy consumption is driven by air-conditioning and there is a shortage of supply. On TV they had a little dial that showed how close the country was to full capac-ity. People knew they might have blackouts, so they switched off things that weren’t needed”.

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Professor Zafer Gürdal Director, Skoltech Center for Advanced Structures, Processes, and Engineered Materials (ASPEM)

When Zafer Gürdal puts on his jacket, a silvery twin-kle emanates from two la-pel pins. One represents Skoltech’s logo. The other is a flying man, his stretched out arms made of finite element mesh.

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It was designed by the aerospace engineering faculty at TU Delft, where Gürdal once taught. Nowa-days the Dutch university is an offi-cial research partner of Skoltech’s ASPEM center that he heads. “I always had this dream where I was flying”, says Gürdal, “I would just run in a field, jump and be airborne.” But now the composite materials engineer who likes to ski and used to scuba dive, is bent on taking off in the real world.

Along with a group of talented researchers and postdocs he as-sembled in Moscow, Turkish-born Gürdal established the Skoltech Center for Advanced Structures, Processes, and Engineered Materi-als (ASPEM).

“Composite materials is a multi-disciplinary field. You need to un-derstand structural issues, tackle challenges in manufacturing, have knowledge of computational meth-ods and grasp the whole complexity of design. This is an excellent op-portunity for us because we aim to achieve all that in one place: right here. In our seven labs which will serve as crosscutting functional units we will put together design, manufacturing, characterization and after-life of composite materi-als. This was never done in any other place in the world.

“Of course this is very ambitious, and the reasonable question is how

we integrate all this. So we came up with the idea of trust areas — large projects, such as Innovative Manu-facturing Technologies, Infrastruc-ture Applications, Computational Design Methodologies, etc., which will have smaller sub projects that will be tackled by a group of labora-tories.

“It would not be an exaggeration to say that the commercial applica-tions could be endless. Economics will play an important role, as com-posites are still expensive. But as we automate production and reduce the number of parts the cost will be-come more effective. Right now we are modifying existing 3D printers to build carbon fiber enforced plastics and developing new technologies so that we can produce anything from small car parts through bicycles to plane fuselages.

SKOLTECH CENTER FOR ADVANCED STRUCTURES, PROCESSES, AND ENGINEERED MATERIALS (ASPEM) FOCUSES ON

Basic and applied re-search into developing advanced structures that are lighter, more durable, more cost-ef-fective, multi-function-al, and environmentally friendly.

Physical mechanics of materials and struc-tures

Methods for multiscale modeling of deforma-tion and fracturing of materials

Methods for automated production of low-cost structures

Physical-chemical methods and technol-ogies for producing materials with multiple constituents, such as polymers, ceramics, and metals

Methods for modeling the physical and me-chanical processes of complex constructions

Multi-disciplinary analysis of composite structures

“All this will be done in Moscow with the help of international and Russian partners — such as KU Leuven (Belgium), TU Delft, the Netherlands, the University of South Carolina and others. “I know it sounds like fun. Why else would I be here?”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Zafer-Guerdal

1 2 3Professor Gürdal received research funding from NASA, as well as companies such as Sikorsky Aircraft, Ford, Schneider Electric, Boeing, Mc. Donnell Douglas, Lockheed Martin, Newport News Shipbuilding, and ALCOA. He is also one of the founders of ADOPTECH, a small business in Virginia.

His work focuses on structural and multi-disciplinary design and optimization, design and optimization of composite materials and structures, adaptive structures, buckling and postbuckling of thin-walled structures, glob-al/local design methodologies for optimization of large complex systems, and computational methods for design.

He finds Moscow “an exhilarating cosmopol-itan metropolis. People are kind. The taxi driv-ers are actually good. I can cross the street while closing my eyes — the cars will stop!”

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Professor Victor KotelianskiDirector, Skoltech Center for Infectious Diseases and Functional Genomics

If the human cell was a battlefield, Professor Victor Kotelianski would serve as a general of the revolutionary biomedicine army.

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1 2 3Professor Kotelianski was a VP for the French company Alnylam for five years, but insists that “Russian is the most beautiful language in the world by far”.

His work focuses on RNAi therapeutics including ALN-RSV01, ALN-VSP, ALN-PCS.

The only visible pictures in his office are on his computer screen saver, where images taken by his daughter, a photog-rapher, float by.

Over the years, his scientific work has focused on RNAi therapeutics that could help our bodies fight off invading viruses in completely new ways. RNA molecules are used to inhibit gene expression by causing the destruction of specific mRNA molecules which are crucial for vi-ruses’ advance on the body.

Now the seasoned researcher is in Skoltech, where he heads the Skoltech Center for Infectious Dis-eases and Functional Genomics. His austere office resembles a field HQ. The walls are bare. The air-con-ditioning is off.

The only evidence of the dramatic results Kotelianski is hoping for cov-ers his desk. Flow charts, research proposals and post-it notes are laid out like on a commander’s sandbox.

The Skoltech Center for Infectious Diseases and Functional Genom-ics will be a unique example of a multi-disciplinary effort to develop clinically suitable, safe and effective siRNA (small interfering RNA) de-livery vehicles to a range of cells. In vivo biology will serve as an impor-tant research tool. “Nothing like this has ever been attempted in Russia”, says Kotelianski.

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Victor-Kotelianski

“We are starting from scratch and there’s a lot of hard work ahead of us,” he says, cracking a weary smile — and goes back to pore over his charts.

THE SKOLTECH CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS AIMS TO

Develop a robust collab-orative effort focused on the development and application of RNA technology for medicine and biology, with spe-cific emphasis towards medical conditions of importance to Russia.

Combine expertise in Drug Delivery, Chem-istry, Biology and Med-icine between experts in the US and Russia, including the efforts of three Nobel Laureates.

Advance science, gen-erate new therapeutics, strengthen Russian institutions, and educate a next generation of Russian scientists.

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Professor Raj RajagopalanProvost

Two statuettes occupy Raj Rajagopalan’s desk. A white bust of Aristotle keeps company to a figurine of the provost, sporting a red football jersey. The philosopher cohabitates with the action figure.

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1 2 3One of the paintings hanging on his office wall, created by an Australian artist, synthesizes core elements of modern cosmology (“a favorite subject of mine”) with the spiral model of Mendeleev’s periodic table and a central, pre-monistic Indian principle which posits that the self is the same as the force behind the universe. “This is expressed in Sanskrit by the simple statement, ‘Thou art that’. As a scientist and an atheist, I love the superposition of the inner world and the outer. The painting is a birthday gift from my wife. I think of her when I look at it”.

Among his hobbies he lists sketching, draw-ing, and reading of “mostly non-fiction of all kinds and popular science books”.

His favorite Moscow pas-time is visiting art galleries: “I can spend hours just looking at a few paintings.”

“I got both as presents” he chuck-les, “perhaps they say something not only about my background but also my complex role here at Skoltech.

“I oversee all aspects of academic operations and life on the campus and beyond. Yet I am an academic at heart. Being an academic adminis-trator without having gone through the experience of being an academ-ic is like being a painter who shows others how to paint by numbers!”, exclaims the university’s chief ac-ademic officer, who is a chemical engineer by background. “If one has not penetrated the soul of a teacher and researcher, one cannot be the best academic administrator.”

As for the decision to join Skoltech, the Indian-born researcher and ad-ministrator explains that “I worked on similar projects in Singapore, the Middle East and Kazakhstan. Imagine the pioneers of the past — going to a new land and building a new future. The excitement and challenges are beyond imagination, words and compare.”

“In an academic institution at its inception one is the author of one’s own future. Not only does one try to achieve one’s own dreams and build one’s own career, one also has the opportunity — in fact, the necessity — to create one’s own en-vironment.

“To me building something, espe-cially a university of the future, from scratch is exciting.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Raj-Rajagopalan

“In the case of a university in its formative stage, each day brings challenges that are either routine or unpredictable. It could be something as ‘simple’ as setting up policies, procedures and processes for a routine activity or as challenging as projecting a vision for the future for a new faculty member or student.

RAJ RAJAGOPALAN’S RESEARCH INTERESTS FOCUS ON

Colloid physics and complex fluids

Liquid-state physics

Biomolecular science

Computational chemistry

Pharmaceutical separations

Microrheology of extracellular matrices

Motility of cancer cells in the extracellular matrices

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Professor Konstantin Severinov Associate Dean of Faculty, Director of Biomedicine Program

Konstantin Severinov lays his hands on a cafeteria table peppered with breadcrumbs. “So you’d like to know what we do?”, the microbiologist flicks aside his mane of silvery hair, “we solve riddles.”

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3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

1 2 3He sees biology “like a Rube Goldberg machine, a crazy contrap-tion that does what it is supposed to do but in a very redundant and often irrational way. Life evolved by thoughtless tinkering, not rational design”.

Severinov wears Skoltech branded t-shirts for interviews. For his latest media appearance he sported a casual grey sweatshirt on a morning show discussion of syn-thetic biology.

He doesn’t have an office in Skoltech “because it’s too petit bourgeois. I have five labs world-wide without offices and I want to keep it this way”. The professor can be spotted roaming the insti-tute’s corridors in search of a quiet corner for himself and his laptop.

“The overreaching theme is that when we study gene expression of bacteria and viruses or when we study antibiotics — we really do it for fun. Yes, there is a bit of a childish thing to being a scientist. It is like a riddle game. There must be an an-swer out there to a problem you are studying, but you do not know it, and you keep looking for it. This is how science and innovation grow.”

The Russian born scientist, who returned to Moscow a decade ago, shifts a few pieces of dry ciabatta around the table’s surface. “As for innovation in Russia, it will grow from a scientific revival that will have to come from within. The Russian diaspora should play a role in this. When I talk to Russian expats who consider coming back, I tell them that to have an impact is empower-ing. And this is what Skoltech can - and should - do for this country.

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/ Faculty/Konstantin-Severinov

Skoltech is an important project because it aims to live up to high expectations in research and education excellence. That is why I moved back to Russia. I maintain my lab in the US. But I’d like to create a situation where the Russian scientists that work with me in America can perform the same activities in Russia.”

KONSTANTIN SEVERINOV’S WORK FOCUSES ON

RNA transcription and bacterial RNA polymerase structure-func-tion and mechanism. “From the point of view of an engineer, bac-teria always do what is right for them: at any given time, only the right genes whose products are needed work. We look for ways to understand and control this pro-cess. If you develop an antibiotic that blocks the expression of a nasty bug’s gene that is required for infection — you can beat it.”

Bacteriophage development and interactions with bacterial hosts. “Viruses make bacteria’s life very difficult, even miserable. So bacteria need to find ways to outdo the viruses. It is a never ending arms race. Understanding it can have wide implications for containing diseases caused by bacteria.”

Structure-activity analysis of peptide antibiotics. “In real life, bacteria do not live in pure cul-tures. They cohabitate and “talk” to each other using chemical signals. Antibiotics is something that bacteria “invented” as a form of communication eons before us humans thought about using it as medicine. We study how bacteria produce antibiotics and how sensitive bacteria die in the presence of antibiotics or find ways to evade them and survive.”

Studies of bacterial diversity in extreme environments: “We go out to places like Antarctica or Kamchatka’s hot springs to find new phages and bacteria and then study them in the lab and determine how they are distrib-uted around the world.”

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Professor Keith Stevenson Director, Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage

“In Russia, much like in the USA, people want to press their cars’ accelerator and get a response”, argues Keith Stevenson, “we need to deliver this energy but lessen our dependence on oil.”

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3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

1 2 3Professor Stevenson’s research in-terests are aimed at elucidating and controlling chemistry at solid/liquid interfaces vital to many emerging energy storage and conversion technologies.

Among his hobbies are fly-fishing (“people tell me Russian rivers are great for that”), and woodworking (“I built a kitchen table and chairs, headboard and dresser when I was a graduate student”). When he strolled around the estate of Catherine the Great, he found the old, lush trees “simply amazing”.

He likes to barbeque (BBQ) and plans on teaching the locals the nuances of this culture.

“There is a way to do it: Store en-ergy in batteries, then utilize it, just like in laptop and cellphone batteries. But the scale is going to be much larger. Immense even.”

Stevenson, who had spent 14 years at the University of Texas, at Austin, US, before recently moving to Mos-cow, heads the Electrochemical En-ergy Storage CREI (one of 15 Skoltech Centers for Research Education and Innovation). “We will test new mate-rials in the context of a major global challenge”, he pledges. “We want to drop the cost of batteries for cars by a factor of ten to a hundred. The price reduction can amount to a third of the total cost of the vehicle. Electric cars are not only for rich people, they have to be commercially viable for everyone in Russia and the world.

“Such research has environ-mental, social and commercial implications. We can change the way people live. Think of quiet and efficient cars. Think even of self-driving cars and single oc-cupancy autonomous vehicles…” the level headed research-er allows a dash of enthusiasm to infiltrate his voice.

“World experts are trying to de-crease batteries’ weight and in-crease energy and power density. These are some of the projects that involve rechargeable metal air bat-teries which utilize oxygen directly from the air or cheap chemicals like sulfur. This research is the focus of this generously funded CREI and its partners like MIT, Moscow State Uni-versity, and other top universities.

As for Skoltech, Stevenson thinks that “the really interesting element is the integration of education and re-search into solving real world prob-lems. A lot of the funding agencies would like to see inspired research, which generates technology that contributes to GDP. The key is to break out of traditional ‘esoteric’ dis-tinctions, so that scientists and stu-dents have freedom to explore and innovate in a broader sense.

“If Russia wants to diversify from oil and gas and develop new invest-ment opportunities, it needs people who can move between institutions and disciplines, start their own businesses and generate innovative new ideas.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Keith-Stevenson

“We also want to dramatically advance grid-level energy use through load-leveling and power-shaping. We need to create energy buffers to increase the efficient use of alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind and water. Sometimes these exist in abundance in nature, sometimes they are just not available. The center will help solve this problem.”

SKOLTECH CENTER FOR ELECTROCHEM-ICAL ENERGY STORAGE AIMS TO

Develop and demonstrate materials, devices and systems that will provide the basis for innovative opportunities for energy storage technologies

Conduct research into advanced metal-ion and rechargeable metal-air battery

Develop fuel and Electrolysis Cells

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3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

21 3Before specializing in physics Anatoly worked as a TV journalist.

He is an avid Alpine skier.

Anatoly enjoys Boston but loves Moscow because: “It is such a vibrant cosmopolitan city.”

ANATOLY DYMARSKY’S WORK FOCUSES ON

Strongly coupled systems, when the constituent parts of a complex system cannot be considered in isolation. Examples range from interacting elementary particles to power grid. 

Anatoly Dymarsky Assistant Professor

Anatoly Dymarsky’s resume reads like a list of the best uni-versities in the English-speaking world: a Ph.D. from Princeton, research positions at Stanford and the University of Cambridge, and a year as a visiting professor at MIT. “Skoltech faculty visit MIT to strengthen their professional skills in the areas most needed,” he says “My experience was mainly academic and I had little exposure to entrepreneurship. As MIT is well-known for its entrepreneurial ecosystem, this is a chance for me to gain invaluable experience.”

So after working and research-ing in centuries-old top institutions in America and the UK, why join Skoltech, a young, private Russian university?

“I was looking for a place with-out interdisciplinary boundaries, where cross-cutting research is encouraged. I’m a theoretical

physicist. But I am also interested in areas that are not considered part of physics, like engineering or quantitative biology. I didn’t want to make a choice.”

Skoltech doesn’t have academic divisions or departments. There are no restrictions when it comes to research. So I’m working with a computer scientist now applying machine learning to improve con-trol of electric power systems.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Anatoly-Dymarsky

“As a professor, my ultimate goal is to provide Skoltech students with knowl-edge that will enable them to thrive in the most competitive environments around the world. The point here is not to follow in someone’s footsteps. We have to create our own way.”

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ALESSANDRO GOLK AR’S WORK FOCUSES ON

Development of systems engineering tools and methodologies for ar-chitecting large engineering systems

Applications for robotic space exploration, hu-man spaceflight, satel-lite systems and energy infrastructures.

Hardware development of small satellites for space exploration and terrestrial applications

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1 2 3A licensed pilot, he flies a plane regularly. Next target: helicopter.

First non-managerial faculty member at Skoltech.

Loves the film “Gravity” but couldn’t stand watching Sandra Bullock spacewalking with the help of a fire extinguisher.

Alessandro Golkar Assistant Professor

When it comes to groundbreaking work, Alessandro Golkar can liter-ally see the future. From his office window, the Italian researcher gazes at a vast field where tractors and builders buzz around an oval construction site, reminiscent of a mother spaceship. It is Skoltech’s new campus.

“Building a university from scratch, that’s probably something you get to do only once in your life”, he says, his fingers tracing an archi-tectural plan laid out on his table. “I helped design my new lab and of-fice. Pretty cool and exciting.”

But the budding buildings are not the only reason professor Golkar, who came to Skoltech from MIT’s aerospace program, feels like a pio-neer. “My students and I are working on a revolution in space”, he smiles, “We are studying how to federate satellites to make them share un-used resources and trade them,

like in a smart grid. The goal is to achieve more with less.”

“They say that the people who at-tend the first meeting, draw the ini-tial plans, are always the ones who shape the future. Now I’m one of those people.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Alessandro-Golkar

“We focus in our lab on concurrent engineering projects. Unlike traditional workgroups in which different teams work separately, developers and designers work together on satellite parts, spaceships or robots. The idea is to take complex multidisciplinary projects and create new concepts and new markets.”

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VICTOR LEMPITSKY’S WORK FOCUSES ON

Computer vision: Designing computer systems that extract, organize, and quantify information contained in images of various types and origin

Visual recognition: Developing robust and flexible machine learning and optimiza-tion techniques able to handle and adapt to the diversity of image data in the modern world

Biomedical image analysis

Victor Lempitsky Assistant Professor

As head of Skoltech’s computer vi-sion group, Lempitsky deals with a tantalizing paradox: he must think beyond the box — in order to make the box smarter. Or not so dumb, as he sees it.

“Computers find it very difficult to extract information from the visual world, while human brains are ex-cellent at that. If, for example, you want to know how many people cross a street a day, you could sit there and count. You’d probably do it perfectly. But it is so boring!” he smiles, “A computer that ‘sees’ is likely to miscalculate the number of people in a crowd by, say, 20%, but for most practical applications this can be just fine. One of my goals is to help computers perform the boring tasks that humans are so good at.”

He then picks up a smartphone from his desk and flips it in his hand.

“Smartphones are great tools for con-necting the visual world with knowl-edge from the internet. They can be good at finding matches and the next challenge is to make them better at finding similarities. In this way, the computers can become good not only at recognizing buildings but also at telling apart species of dogs and flow-ers. Currently the game is about that.”

“Another big challenge — and the one that I find really interesting — is to derive information from images that are not familiar to the human brain. Think for example of 3d images such as those produced by MRI scanners or some modern microscopes. That’s one place where computer vision might outperform the human brain,” he pauses, “even as of now, it is al-ready very helpful.”

So how close are we to the Ter-minator movie-like world, where

robots are able to see?“Not very close. Although the

rate of the progress starts scaring me at times,” he admits. ”The scar-iest bit was when a friend of mine showed me an app that took photos and actually said what they were. The accuracy was impeccable and even complex and uncommon ob-jects were recognized in a matter of seconds. It looked as if comput-er vision was finally solved. I was scared, although I must confess, not of the Terminator but of the fact that I was out of job. Fortunately for me and my colleagues, the app description that we looked up on the Internet said that the pictures were sent to the Philippines, where some guys just typed in what they saw in the photos. It will still take a big effort to make a similar app that does not fake computer vision.”

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21 3Victor leads Skoltech’s Computer Vision Group.

He has worked as a researcher at Russia’s Internet search giant Yandex, the University of Oxford, and with Mi-crosoft in Cambridge. He chose Skoltech because of “the independence I have here, and the chance to collaborate with biologists and researchers from other disciplines”.

When this amiable researcher steps onto the soccer field, he is transformed into an unabash-edly goal-oriented player. Some colleagues and students seem to be in awe of his predatory scoring instinct. Others just high-five him.

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Victor-Lempitsky

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ALEX ANDER USTINOV’S WORK FOCUSES ON

Creation of novel technologies related to Smart Grid

Building a state-of-the-art investigation laboratory at the Energy Systems CREI

Establishing research on enhanced heat and mass transfer in boiling, condensation, free and forced convection, thermal management of power equipment and exhaust gas after treat-ment technologies

Professor Alexander Ustinov Associate Director, Skoltech Center for Energy Systems

“When I started my own company in Germany, I have had an opportu-nity to work on cutting-edge ener-gy projects for companies like Sie-mens”, says Alexander Ustinov, the Associate Director of the Skoltech Center for Energy Systems, “but after 12 years in Western Europe I decided to go back to Russia. Fascinating processes take place here, where I have my roots.”

“Skoltech offered things I could not find in other places. It breaks new ground and grows within a unique ecosystem”, he explains, “there’s the Skolkovo Foundation that supports international R&D and local start-ups. You have the Technopark. More-over, Skoltech is a very international

place, where you enjoy learning from people with various backgrounds. Here interdisciplinarity and synergy are genuine parts of the work.”

“We’re already launching at the Energy Systems CREI a highly inno-vative project in collaboration with the Composites center (ASPEM), to develop composite power towers.”

Ustinov participated in the cre-ation of several companies, which brought novel products and technol-ogies to the European and interna-tional market. “When you’re still at school and start your own venture, you can’t tell whether you’ll make it or not”, he reminisces. “It’s tough. But when a student builds a startup that’s really connected to industry, it

is a genuine breakthrough. The sec-ond you invent something and you bring it to market and commercial-ize, then a whole new set of knowl-edge and skills is created. Skoltech gives that opportunity to students and faculty, and from them it will be transferred to Russia as a whole.

“Of course there are possibilities in other countries. But when you take a close look at the landscape in West-ern Europe, for example, you some-times see half empty technoparks where a handful of startups develop mobile apps. It’s nice to have an iP-hone and an Android app. But what the economy really needs is devel-opment that’s related to industry. We need to actually generate revenue.”

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21 3He is the founder of Advanced Energy Technolo-gies, a German-based company, providing R&D and engineering services, with expertise in building of experimental installations, development of measuring techniques, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simu-lations and modeling of processes of heat and mass transfer for the automobile and energy branches.

Alexander is a passionate stamp collector. “It’s a very old fashioned Russian engineers’ hobby. Keeping an aquarium is another classic pastime. I used to do both, but since I don’t have time for fish, I’m left only with the stamps”.

Loves to travel and brings home a teacup from every trip. “Yester-day I drank coffee from Washington, but today I will be sipping tea from the Beijing cup”.

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Alexander-Ustinov

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Meet Members of our Faculty

KELVIN WILLOUGHBY’S WORK FOCUSES ON

Technology-induced changes on the nature of work and organizations

The role of entrepre-neurship in employment generation and economy

Competitiveness of small entrepreneurial firms

Technology entre-preneurship and intellectual property management (as an area different from the intel-lectual property law).

Kelvin Willoughby Professor

“When I first told colleagues that I’m moving to Russia to work on In-tellectual Property management, they said I must be joking. But I was very serious — and still am”, Kel-vin Willoughby says in an American drawl laced with an Australian lilt.

The business professor and ex-pert on technology-based entre-preneurship speaks softly and to the point: “Russian enterprises, and that includes small startups, must be able to quickly operate interna-tionally in order to survive and flour-ish. They need to navigate the pit-falls and master the characteristics of the global scene. This is where I come in. My aim is to provide aca-demic leadership on IP’s role in tech

management as a vehicle to com-mercialize and develop assets.”

The affable Australian turned American moved to Moscow in summer 2014 to become the first full professor at the Skoltech Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI).

His research is recorded in 4 monographs, numerous scholar-ly publications, technical mono-graphs, industry and government reports; and he has won govern-mental, academic and industry grants in Hong Kong, Thailand, the USA, Germany and Australia. “I am optimistic about what can be done here”, a smile looms on his face, “The CEI will work with Ph.D. and

Masters students, as well as with fellow faculty, to organize their thinking and activities towards suc-cessful commercialization.”

“Moreover, Skoltech can take a leadership role in producing a ro-bust annual survey and a database of the state of tech entrepreneur-ship in Russia. I’d like to learn how it changes over time, what kind of strategic support it might need. We will also conduct case studies of tech companies in the BRICS countries and learn how they tack-le similar problems. I don’t want to copy paste American textbooks and teach those here. The idea is to cre-ate a fresh knowledge base to help Russian tech projects flourish.”

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

21 3“Cooking and eating and drinking wine while talking with friends is one of the most important things in my life. I lived in many coun-tries and always found that food is a good way of getting insights into society.”

Willoughby confesses his love of “modern dance cities like New York, where I used to live, and Moscow, where I reside now. Ballet and modern dance are both my passions”.

He likes walking around old Moscow “to get a feeling for the ebb and flow of the city. Moscow has an efficient public trans-port system, especially the metro. But the fun part is to stroll down a small street, sit in a café or discover a museum.”

FOR MORE INFO, PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Faculty/Kelvin-Willoughby

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Partnership with MIT“You know, I’ve just returned from MIT…” Queuing at the Skoltech caf-eteria, you would probably notice the countless references to MIT by small — and big — talkers.

5 THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE SKOLTECH MIT PARTNERSHIP

1 2 3 4 5Skoltech faculty visit MIT and gain hands-on expe-rience in key areas such as patent registration, bootstrapping a start-up business and securing funding for research.

MIT scholars and researchers, including Nobel laureates and leading scientists, make frequent journeys from Cambridge to Moscow. Some of them decide to stay and become part of the Skoltech faculty.

Skoltech Masters students on their final year of studies can apply for the Skoltech-MIT FLEX program and attend one semester at MIT. Once they are in Cambridge, students either take the coursework they need in order to complement and complete their MS degree paths, or do a research/innovation project with an MIT research advisor.

The MIT Russia Program matches MIT students with paid industrial intern-ships and research op-portunities in Russia. Par-ticipating students come from diverse backgrounds including engineering, architecture, science, and management.

MIT has a historical con-nection to Russia: it was partially modeled on the “Russian School” of engineering education, founded at the Moscow State Technical Univer-sity in 1830, thirty years before MIT itself opened its doors for students.

On October 26, 2011, the newly created Skoltech signed a trilater-al agreement with the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Skolkovo Foundation, and launched an invaluable part-nership whose aim is to build ca-pacity in education, research and entrepreneurship programs at Skoltech. The agreement has been extended to a period of four years.

The result is the MIT Skoltech Initiative, which serves as a portal connecting the two scientific com-munities. MIT acts as an advisor to Skoltech on programs, structure, and curriculum, while research-ers at both institutes benefit from new opportunities for intellectual exchange, network building and shared research.

The flurry of activity is not only about here and now. The focus and purpose lies ahead, beyond the in-itial agreement. Leadership from both sides envision a core strategic partnership dedicated to further building and enhancing capacity at Skoltech, and to advancing Russian participation in the global innova-tion community.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://web.mit.edu/sktech/ http://www.skoltech.ru/en/about/mit/

Nobel laureates Shinya Yamanaka (right) and Phillip Sharp at the Skoltech — MIT conference ‘Towards Therapies of the Future’

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Careers and PositionsBeing a unique university is an exciting challenge. Accordingly, Skoltech is recruiting talent in science and technology.

The Russian government has long seen it as a priority to draw Rus-sian scientists back from abroad. But Skoltech has not only reached out to the RUSSIAN-SPEAKING DIASPORA in order to reverse the brain drain. It also serves as a portal and ac-tively works to provide LEADING PRO-

FESSORS AND SCIENTISTS FROM AROUND

THE WORLD with unique research opportunities.

We seek candidates in TENURED and TENURE-TRACK POSITIONS. Skoltech

has a tenure and promotion system modeled on US practice, with inter-national peer review and three reg-ular professorship levels: Assistant, Associate, and Full. There are also positions of Professor of the Prac-tice, Visiting Professor, and Adjunct Professor.

We offer opportunities for both faculty and post docs in and across FIVE TECHNICAL FOCUS TRACKS, as well as in CROSS-CUTTING AREAS and in INNO-

VATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

SINCE OUR TOP PRIORITY IS TO GROW A COMMUNITY OF BRIGHT AND DRIVEN RESEARCHERS WE ARE OPEN TO APPLICATIONS FROM STRONG CANDIDATES IN ALL AREAS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY RELATED TO OUR PRIORITY THEMES, LISTED BELOW

INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PRIORITY AREAS): machine learning and artificial intelligence, systems and networks, big data-related areas, electronic materials and devices, quantum technology, photonics

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PRIORITY AREAS): computational and systems biology, immunology and infectious disease, gene- and nano-medicine, regenerative medicine, neuroscience, translational medicine

ENERGY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PRIORITY AREAS): hy-drocarbon fuel production and transportation, hydrocarbon processing, electric power systems generation and distri-bution, electrical energy storage, energy efficient systems, energy and the environment

SPACE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PRIORITY AREAS): sup-porting humans in long term space exploration, design and construction of small satellites, utilization of space data for communications, positioning, and earth system information collection, lunar and planetary engineering and science, safety engineering, propulsion

NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (PRIORITY AREAS): nuclear energy safety, materials for extreme environments, non-energy applications of nuclear and radiation technolo-gies, human and biological radiation effects

CROSS-CUTTING AREAS: advanced materials (in particular, composite materials), computational and data-intensive science and engineering, human factors engineering

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION (including commer-cialization, product design/development, manufacturing, large scale systems)

FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS, PLEASE SEE THE PAGES DEDICATED TO LISTINGS, FACULT Y AND POSTDOCS

http://faculty.skoltech.ru/Positions/Listings http://sktech-search.mit.edu/ http://sktech-postdoc.mit.edu/

Professor Natalia Berloff, Dean of Faculty (2nd from left) and professor Dmitri Kharzeev (2nd from right) announce the winner of the 2014 Science Drive initiative at Startup Village

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FundingEach faculty member receives a generous start-up package from Skoltech, designed to cover research costs for the first three years. It includes funds for supporting research personnel as well as funds for research-related travel, equipment, consumables and supplies.

The number and amount depend on the need, type of research (the-oretical, computational, or experi-mental) and rank of appointment. The package is INTERNATIONALLY COM-

PETITIVE.

In addition, Skoltech grants FUR-

THER FUNDING on a competitive basis through CREIs. CREIs also provide access to CENTRALIZED FACILITIES.

Salaries at Skoltech are INTER-

NATIONALLY COMPETITIVE and bench-marked with US universities. They are adjusted for the cost of living in Moscow.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://www.skoltech.ru/faculty

4 THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT OUR POSITIONS

2 3 4Faculty lead the develop-ment of a new curriculum and innova-tive research structure.

Teaching and research are carried out in the English language.

We know what it means to take a leap of faith. We offer internationally competitive salaries and benefits and substantial funding opportunities.

Skoltech is com-mitted to diversity and equality, and all are invited to apply without regard for gender, race or national origin.

1

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Students and EducationYou are probably already aware that Skoltech is an up and coming in-ternational technological and science university, where research and innovation are combined, the only one of its kind in a vast area of the world. But did you also know:

NIGERIA

SPAIN

CANADA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

KAZAKHSTAN

INDIA

UKRAINE

ITALY TURKEY

BANGLADESH

VIET NAM

SERBIA

PAKISTAN

LATVIABELARUS

ARMENIAAZERBAIJAN

THAILAND

№1 AID AND SUPPORT PACKAGE FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS IN RUSSIA. SKOLTECH DELIVERS TECHNO-LOGICAL AND SCIENCE EDUCATION FREE OF TUITION FEES, SUPPORTS STUDENTS WITH A MONTHLY STIPEND, PROVIDES AN ALLOWANCE FOR RENT AND CHIPS IN ON TRAVEL EXPENSES TO PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCES

19 countries of origin: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Canada, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam — and Russia

45% of Skoltech students are ac-tively involved in a startup company or project

27% of MSc students have spent one academic year at MIT, Skoltech’s leading partner university.

80% of Skoltech MSc and PhD students have spent at least one month at MIT, mostly under the FLEX program.WE ALSO COLLABORATE WITH HKUST (HONG KONG); MIPT IN RUSSIA; AND ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE (SWITZERLAND).

TOP 10 Skoltech students were finalists at international

competitions such as the CleanTech Challenge

and MIT’s 100k Competition

5 CROSSCUTTING PH.D. AND M.SC.

PROGRAMS IN IT, ENERGY,

SPACE, BIOMED, AND PRODUCT REALIZATION

35% of all Masters and

Ph.D. students are women

50+ Open doors days, hackathons,

innovation workshops, industry immersion programs

and internships, selection weekends, guest seminars,

and sports events in Skoltech, across Russia

and overseas each year.

15 centers for Research, Education and Innovation (CREIs)* where Ph.D. and MSc students can conduct research, study and

work with leading international scientists and Nobel laureates

$100K raised by MSc students for

four hackathons — several startups and

projects emerged from this work

35%

65% 45% 27% 80%

* the Skoltech CREIs are a work in progress project. Six CREIs have been established by August 2014.

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Students and Education

CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE COMMUNITIES AT FACEBOOK, VKONTAKTE, INSTAGRAM AND T WITTER IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE

WANT TO WATCH SOME VIDEOS ABOUT STUDENTS’ LIFE AND INDUSTRY IMMERSION?

WANT TO APPLY? CHECK OUT THIS LINKAPPLY.SKOLTECH.RU OR SEND US AN EMAIL AT [email protected]

FEEL LIKE HEARING MORE ABOUT OUR CROSSCUTTING TRACKS, EDUCATIONAL MODULES AND DEGREES?FOLLOW THIS LINK SKOLTECH.RU/EDUCATION

www.facebook.com/Skoltech vk.com/skoltech

instagram.com/skoltech

twitter.com/Skoltech www.skoltech.ru/en

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8VidG3kWA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MOElTbP9YE

Design and build electrical cir-cuits in a few minutes. Team up with a group of total strangers to turn a pile of flimsy boxes into a seriously high tower. These are among the challenges that dozens of prospective Skoltech students have to tackle during Selection Weekend - a 72-hour marathon of exams, challenges, interviews and modules — which is the final stage in the students’ admission and selection process. For those who successfully convince the se-lection committee that they have the skills, knowledge and spirit to become innovators, it is all worth-while. On the other end of Selec-tion Weekend, they are admitted to Skoltech as new students.

The admission and selection pro-cess at Skoltech was developed in collaboration with MIT faculty. It involves more than submitting an application, being interviewed by faculty, or taking math and English exams. It focuses not only on what applicants already know — but on what they can achieve in the future. It is our way of seeking out the re-alistic dreamers, the next stars of science and tech.

Skoltech aims to attract, support and nourish an outstanding cadre

of students who have the capaci-ty to become agents of knowledge exchange, innovators, company founders, and leaders who will have impact on Russia and around the world. Almost half of current Skoltech students already have started their own company or tech project. The goal is to enroll new students who will follow the exam-ple of these trailblazers.

Graduate students who join Skoltech attend their first course for the academic year in August. Called Innovation Workshop, it challenges students to find their inner entrepre-neurs, but also provides the tools to do so. At the beginning, students go through Quick Success workshops, where they are challenged - and have some fun. The newly admit-ted grads hack electric bicycles, construct Lego made robotic arms, design composite materials, build bridges made of spaghetti, and ana-lyze Cameron Diaz’s face at a com-puter vision workshop.

At the end of the workshop the students are ready to present their final projects and deal with innova-tion challenges in the real world. They are also ready to begin their multidisciplinary technological and science education in IT, Energy,

Space, Biomedicine or Manufac-turing. There are no compulsory courses at Skoltech. But students are supported in their active pursuit of their goals. They tackle challeng-es, develop solutions, study inde-pendently and work in teams.

When students begin their peri-od with Skoltech, they are ready to speak English with their friends and colleagues, a fifth of whom comes from abroad. They are ready to study in a Russian university and ed-ucation follows international stand-ards such as the CDIO framework and the EU’s Bologna process. And most of all students are ready to grow along with a unique institution — the only one of its kind in a vast part of the world.

Are you ready?

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Skoltech MilestonesIt might be true that even the longest road begins with the smallest step. Yet Skoltech has already covered quite a distance since 2009, when Russia announced its plans to create a contemporary technical center that will incorporate research, education and innovation. Here are some of the milestones in Skoltech’s journey so far:

2011

A P R I L 2 5 Announcement of plans to found Skoltech

O C T O B E R 2 6A newly created Skoltech signs partnership agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy (MIT)

D E C E M B E R 1 9Skoltech launches campaign to raise $2 billion for endowment

2012

Beginning of 2012 First faculty hired and pilot group of M.Sc. students selected

J A N U A R YThe Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) announces its Innovation Support Program

J U L Y 9The Skoltech Board of Trustees ap-proves the first three CREIs — Cen-ters for Research, Education and Innovation: Stem Cell, Infectious Diseases and Functional Genomics, and Energy Storage

A U G U S T 9President Edward Crawley rings a bell and launches Skoltech’s first course, the Innovation Workshop

S E P T E M B E R M.Sc. students travel to four different international universities for one year abroad and begin programs in Energy Science and IT (Information Technology)

O C T O B E R 2 8M.Sc. students Vahe Taamazyan and Nikita Rodichenko win 1st place at the TAPPED Hackathon in Boston, Massachusetts

N O V E M B E R 2Skoltech signs a cooperation agree-ment in the fields of education, science and technological devel-opment with major international corporations operating in Russia, including Intel

2013

2013 Skoltech researchers begin to submit and publish in journals and Top-tier conferences.

F E B R U A R YM.Sc. student Anastasia Uryasheva gains Skolkovo Resident status for her start-up company Sadko Mobile

A P R I L 8Skoltech President Edward Crawley signs a three-sided agreement to create the first CREI — the Center for Stem Cell Research. The Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Rus-sia and University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands, joined Skoltech as partners.

M A YSkoltech students reach the 10 finalists at MIT’s 100k Competition with an application for simplifying satellite photography.

M A Y 2 8Skoltech participates in Startup Village events, organizing seminars and supporting start-up companies

J U N ESkoltech launches a double degree program along with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Phystech)

J U N E 2 0Skoltech signs a five-year collabo-ration agreement with St Peters-burg State University (SPbU).

J U L Y 1 5Skoltech appoints Prof Victor Kote-lianski as its first CREI Director

S E P T E M B E R 5The Skoltech Colloquium kicked off its first seminar

D E C E M B E R 3 1Skoltech faculty numbers 28 permanent members.

2014

A P R I LScience Drive a program to select promising Russian physicists that will work in Manchester, UK under the guidance of Noble laureate Andre Geim.

M A Y 2 7 - 2 8International biomed conference attended by Nobel laureates in Medicine Philip A. Sharp and Shinya Yamanaka

A U G U S T 1 5Skoltech has appointed directors of 6 CREIs. Skoltech faculty numbers 38 permanent members.

By 2020

By 2020, Skoltech plans to have hired 200 professors, attained a class size of 1,200 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students and selected 440 postdocs to conduct research in its 15 Cen-ters for Research, Education and Innovation (CREIs)

Nobel laureate Sidney Altman after giving a Skoltech seminar on antibiotics, May 2014

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Life in Moscow

LOOK AROUND YOU. Moscow is home to 15 million people. See how they rush on and off rumbling trains, as they arrive at underground stations every 90 seconds.

LOOK UP. The subway station’s vaulted ceilings are covered with glorious murals and mosaics. A first ‘wow’ or ‘whoa’ might escape your mouth. As you climb up from the underground and emerge onto the street, historical buildings and modern skyscrapers tower above the stream of people. The energy is almost palpable.

TAKE A LOOK AT CULTURE. Moscow is a cultural powerhouse, celebrat-ing centuries of creativity. Opera houses showcase visceral bari-tones. Ballet troupes fete ethereal ballerinas. Theaters provide En-glish subtitles. It’s a city where you marvel at a thousand years’ old

medieval icon, a hundred years old modern painting or a 20 years old bartender mixing vodka with any drinkable liquid imaginable — and some that aren’t.

MOM, DAD, LOOK AT THAT… Moscow is a city where international kinder-gartens, schools and universi-ties offer programs in dozens of languages; where street signs and bus stations are being dressed up with updated information in English; where families devoted to shopping roam the giant malls, wide parks and trendy back alleys, and the faithful congregate in churches, mosques, synagogues and shrines.

LOOKS LIKE FUN. Restaurants offer anything from a kids menu, through a salad called “herring under a fur coat” to priceless delicacies. It’s where ice-skating,

sun-bathing, snowboarding and sauna-soaking are available 24/7. Moscow even has beaches, replete with golden sand and red-white recliners. And on an island in the Moskva river, the “Red October” arts & entertainment complex paints the city in new, hip colors

LOOK FORWARD. Moscow has always been a cosmopolitan city. Now it’s becoming an increasingly modern metropolis. People on the go need constant connectivity — and the city provides it. Free Wi-Fi is avail-able almost everywhere, even on underground trains. A budding startup scene is complemented by a mature market and a growing demand for researchers and managers, IT experts and energy specialists. New office buildings, techno parks, residential areas and green public spaces spring up. The rush is on, day in day out.

CHECK OUT THE NUMBERS

Moscow is home to a HALF A MILLION English speakers who are expats

Moscow hosts 40 THOU-SAND LICENSED TAXIS — as many as New York

6 MILLION tourists visit the city every year

More than 30 INTER-NATIONAL SCHOOLS and kindergartens are available for children

Known as one of the greenest capitals, the city has over 100 PARKS, GARDENS, AND SQUARES

1 $USD (35 RUBLES) is the average price of a subway ticket

It takes HALF AN HOUR to reach Sheremetyevo airport with the aero-ex-press train

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Russian: Say it по-русскиLegend has it that Catherine the Great (a German princess before she became Russian empress) managed to write the humble Russian word щи, meaning cabbage soup, with eight spelling mistakes: schtschi. Eight wrong letters in a two-letter-word. Not bad for a Tsaritsa. If you feel overwhelmed by this beautiful, profound and complex language, we’re here to give you a push up the linguistic hill.

Skoltech’s working language is English, so you can always re-vert to “howdy” and “wassup”. But wouldn’t you like to start your day with a thick, healthy Здравствуйте (Zdrastvooyte)? That means “hello”.

Another way to greet people is by saying Привет! (Preevyet) which means ‘Hi!’ Better use that with peo-ple you know or are friends with.

It’s all in a name, right? So Meenya zavoot equals “My name is...”

Better be able to say ‘thank you’ (Spaseeba), ‘please’ (Pozhaluysta) and the occasional Eezveeneete (Sorry!) or Prasteete (Excuse me). Don’t go! But

if you do, then Da sveedaneeya means good-bye and paka is a friendly bye-bye.

5 very useful expressions and words to know “Po-Russkie”:

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Russian: Say it по-русски

4 BITS OF LANGUAGE TRIVIA YOU CAN SHOW OFF WITH (COURTESY BBC LANGUAGES)

About 10% of Russian words are internationalisms and bear a re-semblance to English words, eg. ПРОБЛЕМА — problem, КОФЕ — coffee, or КАФЕ — café.

The main source of loan words for modern Russian is English so don’t be surprised if you see words such as ФЛЭШ-КАРТА — flash card, or ХАКЕР —hacker.

There are plenty of loan words from Italian, French or German. Some of those made their way into the Russian language in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the word ПАРИКМАХЕРСКАЯ (parikmacherskaya) — hair salon, from the German word for wig maker.

Can you read this? «ЛЮБОВНЫЕ ПИСЬМА НУЖНО ЖЕЧЬ ВСЕНЕПРЕМЕННО. ИЗ ПРОШЛОГО ПОЛУЧАЕТСЯ БЛАГОРОДНОЕ ТОПЛИВО.» It translates as ‘Love letters have to be burned. The past provides the noblest fuel’. If the acclaimed Vladimir Nabokov, who acknowl-edged that Russian wasn’t his first language, could pull off such stylish prose — there is always hope for the non-native speaker.

WANT TO TELL SOMEONE THAT YOU LOVE THEM IN RUSSIAN? FEEL LIKE LEARNING THIS COMPLEX AND RICH L ANGUAGE?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJMVHL-25H8http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/shedding-light-on-moscows-russian-language-schools/479624.html

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SKOLTECH VISIT WEB www.skoltech.ru http://faculty.skoltech.ru/

TWITTER @Skoltech @skoltech_ru

FACEBOOK Skoltech

VKONTAKTE Skoltech