The HSE News Service spoke to Prof. Maxim Nikitin, Deputy Director of HSE ICEFand Academic Director of the Master’s in Financial Economics, about the college’s international student body and burgeoning partnerships with foreign universities. We also spoke to Minghao Yan, a graduate from China who was awarded the highest marks for the defence of his master’s thesis on gambling behaviour.

Associate Professor Yulia Zaitseva of the Faculty of Computer Science’s Big Data and Information Retrieval School and Research Assistant Ekaterina Nistyuk of the Laboratory on Algebraic Transformation Groups have been named among the winners of the Young Russian Mathematics research grant competition. Also among the awardees is Vladislav Pokidkin, a PhD student at the Faculty of Mathematics.

Alexey Efimov has been appointed Head of the School of Asian Studies at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs. His interview sheds light on how a career path from analyst to journalist and diplomat in China shapes one’s understanding of the East, why soft skills are crucial for today’s international affairs professionals, and what prospects lie ahead for the development of the School of Asian Studies.

A large-scale open day for prospective applicants to the HSE Film Institute took place at the HSE Cultural Centre. The event was structured in full accordance with the laws of dramaturgy, and the guests became not merely spectators, but active participants in the acting process.

HSE University has hosted the final defences of student projects submitted to the Scientific Initiative Competition organised by the Centre for Student Academic Development. Over the course of the year, participants worked on research projects spanning all stages of the research process, from defining a scientific problem to analysing results, and public defence marked the final stage of the competition.

Yadviga Sinyavskaya studies communication technologies, particularly social media. In this interview for the HSE Young Scientists project, she discusses testing the social brain theory on real-world data, the merits of Gogol’s Dead Souls, and ways to prevent burnout.

A team of researchers from Russia and the United Kingdom has, for the first time, provided a detailed account of the emergence and evolution of the Russian Sign Language (RSL) interpreter training system. This large-scale study spans from the 19^th century to the present day, revealing both the achievements and challenges faced by the professional community. 

The 24th Christmas film seminar of the HSE Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology (LSEI), held at the end of December, was devoted to the causes of anxiety and depression among young people. The focus of the discussion was the 2018 film Eighth Grade, whose main character is a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

The superfinal of the Continental Chess League has taken place in Moscow. The experimental project by HSE University lasted three months, bringing together 2,000 online players from Russia and 16 other countries. The eight finalists fought it out over three days, with the overall winner named as Erdem Khubukshanov, an international master who is expected to attain the title of grand master next year.