News

An international team including HSE researchers has conducted the largest ever cross-cultural study of appearance-enhancing behaviours. They have found that people worldwide spend an average of four hours a day on enhancing their beauty. Caring for one's appearance does not depend on gender, and older people worry as much about looking their best as the young do. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviours appears to be social media usage. The study findings have been published in Evolution and Human Behaviour.

Sergey Samsonov could have become a historian or worked in a hedge fund, but he devoted himself to mathematics. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, he explained why he chose research in statistics and machine learning and how to generate a million images of cats.

In early May, the HSE Institute of Ecology and the International Children's and Youth Award ‘Ecology is Everyone's Business’ held a joint seminar in Dagestan, where they discussed the launch of youth environmental projects for federal and international competitions. At the meeting, the Institute's experts presented methods of organising project activity in the field of ecology and sustainable development for educators and young people in Dagestan. Teachers and students from more than 50 schools, colleges and universities of the republic took part in the event.

The ‘Screen Arts. Roll Call’ cultural and educational project of the HSE Art and Design School will be exhibited at the Baltic branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Kaliningrad until July 16, 2023. The project is a continuation of an HSE ART GALLERY exhibition held in September 2022. The exhibition presents a dialogue between three generations: pioneers of video art in Russia, young classicists, and students of the HSE Art and Design School who are uncovering new possibilities in screen arts.

Dmitry Bondar has served as Senior Director for Digital Transformation at HSE University since January 2021. Since then, the university has introduced and developed numerous new, state-of-the-art information systems. Dmitry Bondar is responsible for ensuring high rates of digital transformation and the good performance of HSE's IT Office. In his interview, he speaks about the integration of new information systems, project management at the IT Office, import substitution in IT, engaging with students, and plans for the current year.

In late April, the HSE University Faculty of Computer Science organised its first data science meetup in the capital of Armenia together with the Russian-Armenian University (RAU). The event featured speakers from HSE University, Yandex, and SberDevices. The meeting featured the participation of students from Yerevan universities who have recently become acquainted with data science, as well as specialists in the field.

The Council of the International Student Association (CISA) works to ensure that international students can live and study comfortably at HSE University and in Russia in general. At present, CISA consists of nine international students and its Chair. Its current activities include dealing with border closures, arranging vaccinations, and creating information channels for international students.

On May 21, HSE University’s International Laboratory for Social Integration Research, together with the GES-2 House of Culture, will organise the first International Interdisciplinary Conference ‘What Does It Mean to Be Deaf? New Challenges for the Community’. The forum dedicated to the social, cultural and linguistic foundations of the deaf community’s functioning in the country and the world is planned in offline and online formats.