A Comfortable Environment and Computing Power: Why International Researchers Choose HSE
Rick Farouni received his PhD from Ohio State University in 2017 and has worked at Harvard University, McGill University, and ETH Zurich. In spring 2026, he was selected through the International Academic Career programme as part of HSE University’s international recruitment drive and joined the Big Data and Information Retrieval School at the Faculty of Computer Science as an Associate Professor. Dr Farouni told the HSE News Service why he decided to move to Russia and work at HSE.
— Could you tell us how you decided to move to Russia?
— A whole chain of different factors led to this decision. In fact, it is a long story. It began in 1996, when I came to Russia from Jordan to study. I came to St Petersburg, Russia’s northern capital, to learn Russian. I liked Russia, but then I returned to Jordan, to Amman, and later went to Moscow to study at the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University. That was also where I met my wife. Then we moved to the United States, where I pursued my academic career. Later, I worked in Canada and Switzerland, but at some point we decided as a family that we needed to settle somewhere and choose a country to live in, and we decided to move to Russia.
Over the past 15 years, I have seen the country change significantly for the better. The changes are noticeable both in terms of infrastructure and the development of digital services. The standard of living in Russia has risen considerably. And I realised that I feel comfortable living here. My wife is Russian, and our son speaks Russian, so they are in their natural environment here.
— Why did you choose HSE University as your workplace?
— HSE is one of Russia’s leading universities, and, more importantly for me, it has strong researchers working in fields close to mine, including statistics, machine learning, and computational biology. There are people here with whom I can exchange ideas and expertise and start joint projects.
At the same time, HSE is a genuinely international university where it is possible to teach and conduct research in English. This was also a decisive factor: I speak Russian, but I am not yet at a level where I can lecture in Russian. I am continuing to study the language and hope to eventually start teaching in Russian as well.
— What exactly are you working on at the moment?
— I am currently working at HSE’s Faculty of Computer Science. I was successful in a competitive selection process for a vacant academic position and received an invitation from the university.
I work with interpretable deep-learning models and AI methods applied to biological sequences. At the same time, I am involved in bioinformatics, applied statistics, and modelling: I analyse genome-editing data and develop statistical methods for it.
At HSE, I will be involved in both research and teaching. I am currently preparing a course for students entitled ‘Interpretable Statistical, Machine, and Deep Learning in the Life Sciences.’ The course focuses on how to extract not only predictions from biological data, but also the rules by which this data is generated. My journey at HSE has only just begun, as I joined the university quite recently. I will share more details a little later.
— Was it difficult to move to Moscow?
— I obtained a work visa for highly qualified specialists quickly and without any difficulties, and this summer my family and I moved to Moscow. Compared with other countries, the process of obtaining an invitation and arranging a visa in Russia is straightforward. We started by finding a flat to rent. The move itself was easy. Almost all the paperwork begins after you arrive in Moscow, rather than before you leave. HSE is currently providing me with a great deal of assistance with the necessary paperwork.
— In your view, what do Russian universities need to do to attract researchers from other countries?
— It all depends on the field and on what exactly the researcher works on. For computational sciences and bioinformatics, the key requirement is computing resources: clusters, GPUs, data storage, access to large datasets, as well as people to maintain all this infrastructure. Spacious premises are hardly necessary, which means that a university can scale up such research groups fairly quickly.
Experimental researchers are a different matter: they need state-of-the-art laboratories, which means physical space that will only need to expand over time. And here many universities face a natural limitation: they are located in city centres, where there is simply nowhere to expand.
— In your view, what is the most difficult thing for international researchers when moving to Russia?
— Learning the Russian language, as well as getting to know Russian culture and the country’s traditions. I had already lived in Russia, as well as in other countries, so it was not a shock for me. For example, what surprised me most about Moscow was its incredible pace of life. People who have lived here for a long time are used to it, but it comes as a surprise to foreigners. You are struck by the speed at which everything is decided and happens in the capital. In Moscow, the number of things happening simultaneously is extraordinary.
For example, my recent trip to Vladivostok for the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) was a case in point. It was a bit like going from the frying pan into the fire. The decision was made quickly, and the preparations were equally swift. The EEF session I took part in focused specifically on how to attract international researchers to Russia. It seems to me that one area where the process of attracting foreigners to Russia could be improved would be the creation of a convenient public-services system for foreigners similar to the one available to Russian citizens, with many services integrated in one place and remote access to everything. At present, foreigners in Russia have to visit various government offices.
— In what other areas do you feel the fast pace of life in Moscow?
— I am still surprised, for example, that you can make a doctor's appointment quickly and see a doctor, say a dentist, on the very same day, rather than waiting for weeks. In Switzerland, for example, this is practically impossible. Nothing happens anywhere near that quickly there.
A lot of things happen faster in Moscow because of digitalisation. The scale of it is genuinely impressive. Many processes are faster in Moscow thanks to the highly developed public-services platform and the spread of digital technologies at many different levels. For example, in the residential complex where I live, residents are notified via electronic communication systems when guests arrive. The app for schoolchildren, Moscow Electronic School (MES), is particularly impressive. It shows my son's grades in real time, for every assignment, every day. MES has many other functions as well. Muscovites also organise many activities through chats, where new information is constantly posted. The main thing is finding time to read it. Again, there is nothing quite like this in other countries.
Overall, Moscow gives you the feeling that there simply are not enough hours in the day. The city never really sleeps. In Switzerland, for example, people do not even put their rubbish out at weekends, which gives you an idea of how quiet life is on those days.
— How do you get to work and travel around the city?
— I use the underground and trams, but what impresses me is not so much the underground itself as the city's transport system as a whole. The underground, trams, and buses all operate as a single network: one ticket, coordinated connections, clear navigation, and trains every two or three minutes. This is a subjective impression—I have not read any studies on the subject—but I have lived in several countries, so I have something to compare it with: in terms of how well integrated the urban transport system is, Moscow is probably the best city I have seen.
— What are your plans for the academic year? What would you like to achieve?
— I want to actively teach the next generation of researchers. For now, I am just preparing to meet my Russian students, but I have heard many good things about them: Russia has historically had a very strong tradition of mathematics education. Russians are consistently well represented among the winners of academic competitions and olympiads at various levels. Today, all countries are trying to develop new technologies, and deep knowledge is crucial. It allows you to see the nuances on which progress and results depend.
The other half of my plans concerns research. This year, I want to launch my own research programme and bring together students who are interested in AI in biology. The focus will be on interpretable statistical, machine-learning, and deep-learning models. It is important not simply to achieve accurate predictions, but to understand exactly what the model has learned. Such models are highly accurate today, but at the same time they are almost impossible to interpret, and I am interested in extracting testable biological hypotheses from them.
After that, everything will depend on grant funding. If the applications are successful, the programme could be developed into a fully fledged laboratory: the number of students and postdocs and the available computing resources will all depend on the funding.
