Campus news at HSE University

The peak performance of the HSE cHARISMa supercomputer has doubled, reaching 2 petaflops (2 quadrillion floating-point operations per second). HSE University now outperforms the Kurchatov Institute in terms of computing power. The only more powerful university computers are MSU’s Lomonosov-2 and SPbPU’s Polytechnic. Thanks to the timely upgrade, cHARISMa has retained its respectable 6th position among the Top 50 most powerful computer systems in the CIS for three years.

In a series of events that ran from September 13–21, psychologists from the HSE University Centre for Psychological Counselling spoke to students about communication traps and establishing trusting relationships, the challenges of adapting to a new environment and the resources required to do so, the university’s emergency psychological service, and animal therapy. The event programme also included English-language events.

HSE University's English-language newsletter, HSE LooK, has talked to Anna Blyakhman, Director of the HSE Nizhny Novgorod campus, about the history of the campus, its most noteworthy achievements, and future plans.

Held as part of the Second New Knowledge Marathon, the fourth HSE Science Battles attracted a wide audience. HSE Students Frol Sapronov, Marina Kasyulina, and Vsevolod Nikolsky took part in the competition’s new televised format to demonstrate how to talk about science vividly and in simple terms understandable to any audience.

From September 8 to 12, 2021, the HSE Art and Design School will present projects that examine the topics of online privacy, attention deficit disorder in the digital environment, the perception of the human body, and ‘dark ecology’. The programme includes performances, interactive art exhibitions and a roundtable discussion on the theoretical understanding of digital transformations of culture.

In June 2021, HSE University and Times Higher Education (THE) held the online Young Universities Summit. It marked the first time the summit was held with support from a Russian university, and the choice of HSE University was no coincidence—it is the only Russian university to be included in THE’s Young University Rankings. Preparations for the forum included the creation of a virtual tour of several HSE buildings. We spoke to Deputy Vice Rector Marina Kozak about the content of the tour and the practical applications of VR technology for the university.

Classes in the new academic year will take place on site for students of all HSE University campuses. Existing COVID safety precautions will remain in effect.

Alaa N. Assaf is a doctoral student at HSE University’s Faculty of Law. In addition to doing research for his PhD thesis, he teaches undergraduates. Alaa has shared his thoughts on studying international law, life in Moscow, and what he misses about teaching in person.