Skoltech is an international graduate research-focused university that was founded by the group of world-renowned scientists in 2011. Skoltech's curriculum focuses on technology and innovation, offering Master's programs in 11 technological disciplines. Students receive rigorous theoretical and practical training, design their own research projects, participate in internships and gain entrepreneurial skills in English. The faculty is comprised of current researchers with international accreditation and achievements.

Tag Archives: Skoltech

Building Bridges to Asia: Energy Systems Researcher Presents ‘Supergrid’ Study in Korea and Mongolia

20/07/2014

ICEE Conference in Jeju, South Korea. Panel session on proposed northeast Asian super-grid

ICEE Conference in Jeju, South Korea. Participants of panel session on proposed northeast Asian super-grid. Top row, second from left: Ksenia Kooshkina, Skoltech Center for Energy Systems

Bridge-building to research and industry communities worldwide is one of Skoltech’s core missions. And one of the most crucial – and pressing – applications of international cooperation is in the field of energy. What way forward should countries take in order to better utilize and share precious resources? Ksenia Kushkina, a project manager with the Skoltech Center for Energy Systems suggests that a proposed ‘North-East Asia Supergrid’, also known as the ‘Asian Energy Ring‘, could offer a good option. In a recent visit to Korea and Mongolia, Kooshkina presented her findings on the region’s energy needs – and how to efficiently address them by sharing and combining energy systems across borders.

The designers of the ‘super-grid’ propose to combine the power outputs of Siberia, the Russian Far East and Asia-Pacific countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. Kushkina participated in a panel session on the topic at the International Conference on Electrical Engineering in Jeju, South Korea last month (see image). The discussion involved, among others, representatives of research institutes, electrical equipment suppliers, energy companies and manufacturing corporations such as KEPCO (Korea), NARI Group (China) and EN+ Group (Russia).

Kushkina: “In Korea, we have presented the preliminary results of research on the effectiveness of interconnecting Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan. Our study shows that each country’s power systems will benefit. Our conclusions were further supported by the interest in the project from Korean, Chinese and Japanese companies”.

Skoltech research on modeling new electrical connections (such as the ‘Supergrid’ or ‘Asian Energy Ring’) was performed in the framework of the memorandum signed between Skoltech, En + Group and South Korea’s KEPCO during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Korea in November 2013. Now the team is hard at work, preparing further cooperation proposals ahead of a visit in Russia by the President of the Republic of Korea in 2014. Skoltech researchers are slated to present the results of the study at the “Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation” (APEC) summit in November 2014.

* The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a private graduate research university in Skolkovo, Russia, a suburb of Moscow. Established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, Skoltech educates global leaders in innovation, advances scientific knowledge, and fosters new technologies to address critical issues facing Russia and the world. Applying international research and educational models, the university integrates the best Russian scientific traditions with twenty-first century entrepreneurship and innovation.

“The Beauty of the Moment When You Create Something”. Nobel Laureate talks Inspiration, Education, Science – and Snoopy

15/07/2014

Professor Harry Kroto giving a guest lecture at Skoltech

“That moment when children realize they’ve created something, that moment…”, Nobel laureate Harry Kroto paused mid-sentence, “there really is nothing like it”. There was a brief silence, then the audience realized this was the final statement from Skoltech’s guest lecturer. Then came the applause, the smiles and a procession of audience members. They waited for their turn to chat with the chemist who received a Nobel for the discovery of Buckminsterfullerene, a carbon-made sphere which resembles a soccer ball. Kroto fondly refers to it as Buckyball.

But it’s a different kind of simple natural beauty that energizes and enchants the 74 year old man: young people’s ability to be curious and creative. He now devotes his life to what he calls “the triple educational revolution of the Goo-You-Wiki World”, the title of his guest seminar at Skoltech. Kroto sees a world where Google, YouTube and Wikipedia open up a new range of possibilities for teachers and students.

To illustrate his point about the effectiveness of online education tools such as GEOSET, the Florida State University professor recruited a dream line up. Copernicus, Galileo, Picasso, Darwin and Snoopy were all feted in front of a full house at the Skoltech auditorium.

There were also objects. One of them was a camera rescued from Berlin just before the Second World War. “It used to be hard work to take a picture, you had to understand the mechanism and the chemistry”, said Kroto, “nowadays kids don’t know what’s going in and on a smart phone camera – but they also don’t care. We need to bring back the curiosity.

“The ethical purpose of education involves teaching young people how they can decide for themselves what is true or false. Does preying work as well as your mobile phone?” He smiled, then became serious again. “Penicillin was a miracle but now antibiotics-resistant bacteria pose a grave threat. But how do we convey this intriguing complexity?

Nobel laureate Kroto at the Skoltech seminar

Here is the real question: how can you make a difference as an educator?”

Kroto began addressing these issues when he participated as a guest on TV and radio programs. Then came the Algebra workshops he conducts with six-year-old students. And now it is time, he believes, to embrace distant online learning and tutoring. “By using online tools my team and I have revolutionized resumes and assessments. GEOSET turns it all into an enjoyable experience. After universities and employees see our students’ presentations, they say things like ‘we can see that you can teach’ or ‘we enjoyed your presentation’. We’re providing young students with a technological platform that they can contribute to. We’ve created local branches in countries like Japan, USA, and Brazil, and hopefully Russia. We send links to funding agencies instead of long documents. Nobody reads your reports but they will click on a link to a two minute presentation.”

He took another pause. “This is what I call a revolution”

A member of the audience wanted to know how come Kroto uses humor so often, but fails to mention it directly in his presentation.

“I have three religions”, he replied, “Amnesty international, atheism – and humor. Does that answer your question?”

Harry Kroto: inspired by Snoopy, Copernicus and Darwin

A full house at the Skoltech auditorium. The Harold Kroto guest seminar was organized by Mikhail Myagkov,
Skoltech’s Vice-President for Academic Affairs and International Relations

New International Partnership: Skoltech CREIs and TU Delft sign Cooperation Agreement for Composites Center

10/07/2014

Signing of contracts for partnership of Composites CREI between Skoltech CREIs and Delft TU (from right): Zafer Gürdal, Director of the Skoltech Center for Composites; Mats Nordlund, Skoltech’s Vice-President for Research; Dirk Jan van den Berg, The President of TU Delft

Signing of contracts between Skoltech CREIs and Delft TU (from right): Zafer Gürdal, Director of the Skoltech Center for Composites; Mats Nordlund, Skoltech’s Vice-President for Research; Dirk Jan van den Berg, The President of TU Delft. Photo: Ilan Goren, Skoltech

The Skoltech Center for Composites signed today a partnership agreement with TU Delft, The Netherlands. At a ceremony held at the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Moscow, representatives from the leading Dutch research center and Skoltech agreed to work together on developing the CREI (Center for Research Education and Innovation) which focuses on applicable research into advanced structures and composite materials.

The Composites center aims to conduct basic and applied research into developing advanced structures that are lighter, more durable, more cost-effective, multi-functional, and environmentally friendly. This will be achieved by combining innovation and insight into and developing an integrated multidisciplinary approach for materials, processes and manufacturing techniques. The cooperation with Delft TU will involve scientists, faculty and students from both sides with the aim of conducting joint research projects and sharing facilities.

The Center for Composites has already secured cooperation agreements with two international partners – University of South Carolina, USA and KU Leuven, Belgium – and one Russian partner (The Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics RAS.) It is one of the six Skoltech CREIs which have so far been established.

Zafer Gürdal, the Director of the Skoltech Center for Composites: “The cooperation with TU DELFT offers our CREI an excellent opportunity to grow and floursih. What we plan to do at the Center for Composites wasn’t done in any other place in the world. Usually research centers focus on manufacturing or characterization, but here we’d like to have those put together and cover every relevant challenge – from composite materials design through manufacturing to material afterlife.”

Central to its research mission, Skoltech is founding 15 multidisciplinary Centers for Research, Innovation and Education (CREIs), which will address critical problems facing industry and society, particularly in the Russian context. These centers are key components in building capacity at the university, including world-class research teams, instruments, and facilities. The CREIs are the institute’s major scientific growth engines. The establishment of CREIs is carried out in close cooperation with one (or more) international and Russian academic partners. Skoltech strongly believes that this is the most efficient and fastest way to establish a new world-class graduate research university.

Signing the Composites Center contract between Skoltech CREIs and Delft TU. 10.07.2014. Photo: Ilan Goren, Skoltech

Space Forecast: Skoltech Researchers Achieve Unprecedented Accuracy in Magnetospheric Reconstruction

09/07/2014

A new method developed by Skoltech, MIT and UCLA researchers allows to restore the current state of the radiation belts in the Earth’s Magnetosphere. Image courtesy: NASA

More than a thousand operational satellites are currently orbiting the Earth and each of them is prone to the severe disturbances known as “space weather”. Now researchers from Skoltech, UCLA and MIT have developed a method that allows to restore the current state of the radiation belts in the Earth’s magnetosphere and predict its evolution. This “space forecast” is usually based on sparse observational data. Yet the team of Russian and American scientists has been able to improve its accuracy to an unprecedented level, as they report in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), Space Physics. Researchers believe the new method might also be used for weather forecasting and the dynamics of the oceans.

Working in space could be a nightmare mission when it comes to sensitive electronics. When outside of the protection of atmosphere, devices operate under a heavy bombardment of high-energy particles originating mainly from the Sun and trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field. The intensity of radiation can vary in orders of magnitude, depending on solar wind conditions as well as on processes inside the magnetosphere. In order to determine where and when space equipment might fail, researchers and space agencies must constantly monitor the space environment with research satellites.

Professor Yuri Shprits, Skoltech, co-author of the Magnetosphere Reconstruction study

Professor Yuri Shprits, Skoltech, co-author of the Magnetospheric Reconstruction study

However, raw satellite data is not enough, says Skoltech professor Yuri Shprits. “One of the major difficulties in understanding space environment is that observations are limited to a particular point in space and time while applications require a global and continuous coverage”, explains Shprits. The method developed by him and his co-authors allows reconstruction of the entire radiation belts. Their findings, along with the method which made those possible, are published in two papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), Space Physics (see links here and here).

“Our model works similar to a GPS navigation device like the one you use in cars,” says Shprits, “a navigation device assumes that when you are moving at a speed of, say, 70 kmph, in five seconds you are likely to be about a hundred meters away from the previous spot. When the tracker receives new data from satellites it blends this model with new data to calculate new coordinates. This requires the usage of a mathematical model of the moving vehicle. We analyze the evolution of the magnetosphere in a similar way but our model is much more sophisticated”.

The prominent feature of the new method is that it makes it possible to determine both the uncertainties of the physical model of near-space environment and uncertainties of the satellite observations in order to combine those in an optimal way to achieve reconstruction with guaranteed accuracy. “This method is applicable not only to the studies of the space environment, but also can be used for weather forecasting, in the studies of ocean dynamics, and for a number of studies that utilize large amounts of measurements,” adds Tatyana Podladchikova, a Skoltech postdoc and the first author on both of JGR publications. “The satellite data flow nowadays is so huge that development of new methods of handling it is as important as launching new satellites”.

By utilizing the new method authors plan to create an online service where the current state of the magnetosphere can be monitored in real time. They also intend to look through the archive satellite data in order to reconstruct the state of space weather in the past. Earlier Shprits’s group have managed to explain the unusual behavior of high-energy particles in the near-Earth space environment in August 2012, when the two well-known Van Allen radiation belts were joined by a temporary third one. The new method will allow to “replay” this and other unusual moments in the history of the magnetosphere over the past couple of decades.

Tatiana Podladchikova, Skoltech postdoc and the first author on both of JGR publications

Students Selection Weekend 2014: Who Will be Admitted to Skoltech?

When: 11-07-2014 13:30

Where: Moscow School of Management, Skolkovo

Skoltech’s faculty strongly believe that students should be evaluated not only on what they know, but also what they can do

Several times per year, prospective students from across Russia and around the world converge in Skoltech for “Selection Weekend” and a chance to gain admission to one of the institute’s growing MSc programs in technology and science. During these “Selection Weekends”, participants go through two and a half days of interviews, rigorous written examinations, an English test, and – most important – problem-based engineering modules that are designed by Skoltech faculty and senior staff. The final event for 2014 will be held this weekend, July 11-13, at the Moscow School of Management.

Invitations to Selection Weekend are reserved for those students who submitted the strongest online applications to the program, but Skoltech’s faculty believe that students should be evaluated not only on what they know, but also what they can do. The Weekend thus emphasizes the application of knowledge in different settings, and is designed to simulate what it is like to be a Skoltech student. At the end of the Weekend, faculty are given a greater picture of which students are the best fit for the kind of education provided at Skoltech.

For a new university like Skoltech, the weekend is also an opportunity to provide prospective students with the latest developments in the research and innovation programs. Because of the unique experience, students who receive an offer of admission after Selection Weekend usually accept it (more than 90%, which is a better rate than at many top-ten ranked institutions).

Guest Lecture by Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto: How Do You Goo – the Educational Revolution of Online Learning

When: 15-07-2014 12:00

Where: Beijing-1 Auditorium, China cluster Skolkovo School of Management

Yes, they are actually curious about science. Image Couretsy of Margaret Kroto

It is not every day that you meet a Nobel laureate in chemistry who calls himself Harry, rather than Professor Kroto or Sir Harold. But this guest speaker, slated to give a Skoltech seminar on July 15, is different. Perhaps it’s because he focuses not on his own credentials but on future generations. Harry Kroto deals with new ways of tapping into young people’s creativity, in an ever-changing landscape of webinars, online courses, and seemingly endless knowledge. Harry Kroto cares about young people living in what he calls the GooYouWiki World – and their brains.

Seminar Title: “The Educational Revolution and the Goo-You-Wiki World”

When: July 15^th, 12 PM

Where: Beijing-1 Auditorium, China cluster Skolkovo School of Management

Further details and info: buldina@skolkovotech.ru

Seminar Abstract

The aim of education is to uncap the creative potential of every child and we now have a new device which promises to help us do better than before. The Internet has initiated the second great revolution in education; the first was initiated by the printing press. The GooYouWiki World not only makes information almost instantaneously locatable and accessible today, but it also enables anyone with expertise and the passion to communicate to contribute to the amazing globally-accessible cache of knowledge.

On-line education is of course invaluable for students who are unable to attend a university physically but it is not clear that the simple repackaging of courses utilizes the new technology to its full potential. For instance the traditional teacher-student dynamics is basically no different on-line from what it was before and certainly the close personal teacher-student interaction, often so crucial in successful education relationships, is lost. We should thus also explore the new imaginative educational approaches which this technology offers for instance to conflate synergistically with, rather than replace, traditional ones.

A first initiative in the UK, www.vega.org.uk, is now a fantastic archive of recordings by outstanding scientists and its spin-off is the Global Educational Outreach for Science, Engineering and Technology (GEOSET) initiative (www.geoset.info) which is aimed at capturing the ingenuity of teachers to explain specific topics which can be used by other teachers elsewhere on the planet.

It also enables students to contribute creatively to the great humanitarian endeavor of building the “Global Cache of Knowledge” and at the same time improve greatly their career prospects. GEOSET turns the dynamics of the teaching process round by 180 degrees and focuses on the educator capturing what the teacher wants to teach.

Our new related initiative is assembling Teacher’s Tricks of The Trade, focused nuggets of teaching genius to be streamed from the new www.TToTTs.com website for other teachers to employ in their own lessons and lectures.

Prof. Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Laureate (1996), Chemistry

Speaker Introduction

Professor Sir Harold Kroto FRS, was knighted in 1996 for contributions to chemistry and later that year, together with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley (of Rice University, Houston, Texas), received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of C60 Buckminsterfullerene – a new form of carbon. Fellow of the Royal Society (1990), Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (US), President of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2002-2004). Longstaff Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (1993), Faraday Lecturer 2001 (Royal Society), Copley Medal of the Royal Society (2002), Erasmus Medal of Academia Europaea, Freeman of the City of Torino, 29 Hon Degrees.

Innovation Workshop 2014: Summertime and the Livin’ is Busy

When: 23-07-2014

Where: MSM Moscow

Innovation workshop culminates with prototypes presentations by the students

Innovation workshop culminates with innovation prototypes presentations by the students

Summer: It’s the hot, slow season. A time when droves of students focus mostly on zoning out. Nothing wrong with a bit of daydreaming, but this summer the new cohort of Skoltech MSc students will be busy directing their attention – on innovation. Postgrads will kick off their studies on July 23^rd with an intensive Innovation Workshop. For the first time, the event will be hosted in Moscow.

Each academic year Skoltech welcomes its new group of Biomed, IT and Energy tracks’ postgrads with a four-week course, which aims to create a foundational experience in entrepreneurship and innovation, to empower participants to identify and solve real–world problems with technology, and to instill an entrepreneurial “can–do” attitude. Thus, the workshop teaches and reinforces the flexibility and creativity required for a successful innovator.

Dr. Ilia Dubinsky, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Skoltech, the Workshop’s director and designer, will challenge more than 100 participants with multiple non-standard tasks. The workshop will feature lectures on technology and its impact, hands-on projects, leadership, negotiation and presentation experiences, company visits, and social events. It will culminate on August 15th with innovation prototypes presentations by the students.

* The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) aims to make Skoltech an engine of economic growth by rapidly implementing ideas to create impact, by engaging Skoltech students and faculty in E&I (entrepreneurship and innovation), and by accelerating research outcomes toward commercialization and broader social impact. Developed through the partnership between Skoltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the center establishes connections between students, researchers, and business; integrates E&I into Skoltech education and research pathways through the curriculum and entrepreneurial programs; conducts research into management style and practices of E&I in the Russian Federation; supports innovation through integrated commercialization services.

* The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a private graduate research university in Skolkovo, Russia, a suburb of Moscow. Established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, Skoltech educates global leaders in innovation, advances scientific knowledge, and fosters new technologies to address critical issues facing Russia and the world. Applying international research and educational models, the university integrates the best Russian scientific traditions with twenty-first century entrepreneurship and innovation.

Skoltech Community Grows: New Director for Energy Storage Center

30/06/2014

As Skoltech continues to build a unique international team of research leaders, Skoltech announces that Professor Keith J. Stevenson joined us as Director of the Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage CREI, starting today, June 30, 2014.

Lithium-ion battery testing. Photo courtesy Argonne National Laboratory, Flickr

The Electrochemical Energy Storage CREI (Center for Research, Education and Innovation) at Skoltech will address fundamental research that will support the energy industry in Russia and the world, and develop and demonstrate materials, devices and systems that will provide the basis for innovative opportunities for energy storage technologies. The research program concentrates around new metal-ion and metal-air battery technologies, and new fuel and electrolysis cell technologies. The CREI is generously funded to collaborate closely with MIT, Moscow State University, and other top universities around the world. Our ambition is to establish Skoltech as a world-class center for energy storage research. Important foci are devices and systems than can dramatically advance portable electronics and electric vehicle transportation sectors, in addition to grid-level energy use through load-leveling and power-shaping, which serve as energy buffers to increase the efficient use of alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind, and water, that are intermittent in nature.

Keith J. Stevenson received his Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Utah. Subsequently, he held a postdoctoral appointment at Northwestern University (1997-2000); and a professorial appointment since 2000 at the University of Texas at Austin, US in a top ranked university (25th in world, 12th in US Chemistry Departments, and 5th in Analytical Chemistry specialization).

Keith Stevenson, Director of the Skoltech Center for Wlectrochemical Energy Storage

Keith Stevenson, Director of the Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage

Recently, he has served as a scientific thrust leader in Electrochemical Energy Storage on a $15M Department of Energy Frontier Research Center, Director of the $38M Center for Nano- and Molecular Science and Technology (CNM), and on the steering board for the Texas Materials Institute (TMI).

Stevenson has been extremely innovative in pursuing major research and educational initiatives in nanomaterials and nanotechnology areas. This includes serving as the faculty advisor for the CNM’s Doctoral Portfolio Program that has produced a successful cadre of more than 120 well-trained scientists and engineers from 14 different academic departments since its inception in 2002. He also managed several shared instrumentation facilities, which total over $20M in housing state-of-the-art equipment including $4M+ of resources acquired by US federal funds and private foundation grants.

On the educational side, he has been the State Director of the Welch Foundation Summer Scholar Program (2008-2014) which funds summer research activities for high school students across the state of Texas, with over 1600 students served. He is also one of three founding faculty members of UT-Austin’s federally funded Undergraduate Freshman Research Initiative. Now over 400 undergraduate students have performed research and published their work under his direction in the area of nanomaterials for catalysis. The FRI program currently involves over 25 research faculty and >800 undergraduate researchers per year; and is transforming the way undergraduate research is conducted at large tier one research universities.

Keith Stevenson’s research interests are aimed at elucidating and controlling chemistry at solid/liquid interfaces vital to many emerging energy storage and energy conversion technologies. To date he has published over 145 peer-reviewed publications, five patents, and six book chapters in this field. He is a recipient of a NSF CAREER award (2002), the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools New Scholar Award (2004), the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2006), and Kavli Fellow (2012). Keith is a member of the American Chemical Society, Electrochemical Society, Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry, and the Materials Research Society.

* Skoltech currently operates 6 CREIs – Centers for Research, Innovation and Education – out of 15 that are planned to be established by 2020. These are the major components of the Skoltech concept – and its implementation. The CREIs are the institute’s major scientific growth engines as they pursue leading research in their fields, deliver world-class graduate education programs and generate results that can form the basis for innovation and entrepreneurship 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 centers address critical challenges in 5 major “Tracks”the institute focuses on: Information, Biomedicine, Energy, Space and Nuclear Science and Technology (as well as science cutting across these areas.) The establishment of CREIs is done in close cooperation with one (or more) international and Russian academic partner institutions. Skoltech believes this is the most efficient and fastest way to establish a new world-class graduate research university complementing the existing research and educational system in Russia and develop a gateway between Russia and the rest of the world.