Campus news at HSE University

One of HSE’s newest faculty members is Francis Tyers, who will join the School of Linguistics on August 28 as an Assistant Professor. A native of Normanton on Soar, a small village in the south of Nottinghamshire in England, he joins HSE following a postdoctoral fellowship at UiT Norgga árktalaš universitehta in Tromsø in the north of Norway, where he worked on language technology for Russian and the Sámi languages. Prior to that, he completed PhD studies in the Department of Languages and Information Systems at the Universitat d'Alacant in Spain.

On July 24, the results of the Best Teachers 2017 competition at HSE were announced, with more than 500 teachers from across the university being recognized by students, 80% of whom voted in this year’s competition. While the financial reward for recognition is certainly attractive, the teachers who won appreciated the support of students, as well as the opportunity to reflect on their careers and what has made them successful.

Samrat Sil is a recent graduate of the English-taught Master's programme in Applied and Interdisciplinary History ‘Usable Pasts’ at HSE St. Petersburg. David Datmar, a native of Ghana, decided to join the programme to help him prepare for eventual study at the PhD level, which he plans to undertake soon at the University of Oxford. Both gentlemen were recently awarded certificates of recognition for their role as ambassadors contributing to the university’s internationalization agenda.

The Best Teachers 2017 competition at HSE recently reached its completion. Although the overall procedure this year was the same as it was in 2016, the financial terms changed – the bonuses for the winners have been increased. Vadim Radaev, First Vice Rector of HSE, told us about the vote and some of the perks for all of the winners.

As described by one of the original ICEF team members, Oleg Zamkov, ICEF Deputy Director and Academic Head of HSE and University of London Double Degree Programme in Economics, the success of ICEF was in choosing the right moment for the start and finding the right people, both academics and administrators. It would also be unimaginable without the advice and support from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), especially Richard Layard, who helped design several key elements of the curriculum for double degree programme, Richard Jackmanand Amos Witztum who made a significant contribution to ICEF idea implementation.

The School of Psychology has moved to Armyansky Pereulok, which was a long-awaited event for HSE psychology students. The school was previously located at one of the university’s more remote campuses on Volgogradsky Prospekt. The HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making also made an important move recently, this time into the university’s building on Krivokolenny Pereulok. Below we show and discuss where and how HSE students will be learning starting this September.

The HSE St Petersburg Buddy Club has officially become a section of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). The buddy club is a student organization and its main aim is helping international students adapt to their new lifestyle in Saint Petersburg and to their studies at the Higher School of Economics. Club members meet international students when they arrive, take them to the students' new home, explain how to use the underground, help buy a sim card, open a bank account and assist with other important tasks which students may find difficult to handle not knowing the Russian language. Additionally, the club also organizes educational and entertaining activities, trips to theatres, cultural events, Russian film evenings, etc.

Professor Krouk is a renowned scholar from St. Petersburg, an expert in information systems and technologies, cryptography, and data transfer. Until recently, he was Vice Rector for Research and Director at an institute at the St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation.