Under the guidance of Professor Artem Oganov, a group of Skoltech scientists prepared and delivered a special course of lectures on Materials Science for gifted schoolchildren from across Russia.

“My graduate students – Valery Royzen, Anastasia Naumova and Oleg Feya – and I invited academically gifted schoolchildren to attend the course. We first met these children on 1 September 2017, during an open lesson I taught in Yaroslavl. There, science enthusiasts from all over the country gathered. The kids were very inspired by our lessons and said they wanted to come to my lab at Skoltech. Their dream came true. They spent a week at Skoltech. They have now returned to their schools, but they hope to continue to interact with our lab. I think we’ve done very useful work,” Oganov said.

The course, which took place on 12-16 February, featured lectures on such topics as the Computational Design of Materials, Chemical Communication Theory and Numerical Methods and Scientific Programming. We also taught them the basics of chemical modeling and machine learning methods in the modeling of materials.

After completing the special course, the participants shared their thoughts on the event.

Andrei Nizhnekamsk, 17 years old: “This was a strange experience – not like school. It was a very cool feeling! I want to go further and deeper with my studies than ever before.”

Vladislav Moscow, 17 years old: “I’m not a chemist at all, and for me this was an introduction to real science. It is very pleasant to immerse yourself in a real scientific environment, to perceive how chemists live and think.” 

Anya Belgorod, 16 years old: “My main takeaway, surprisingly, was peace of mind! Seeing that such a place exists – with scientists, laboratories and this cultural environment – made me somehow calmer. We feel at home here. It’s great that we were invited; it was a unique experience. We have never experienced anything like this before. Many thanks to Professor Oganov and the others for the invitation!”

Grigory Izhevsk, 16 years old: “I’m at Skolkovo for the first time. The buildings and laboratories had the biggest impact on me. I cannot believe that in Russia there can be such a large-scale scientific center with world-class scientists. Like in the movies! Thanks to Skoltech for bringing the future to the present!”