Skoltech Global

🍂 Autumn at Skoltech hits different.

⭐️ Meet Anna Nanidzhanian, a new #SkoltechStudent

A first-year Skoltech master's student in Applied Photonics and Optical Information Systems, and the participant who successfully completed the coveted red square in our Summer Bingo by getting into Skoltech!

She brings an impressive background: an honors degree from MTUCI, over 20 research publications, a university research grant, two Presidential scholarships and one from the Russian Government, plus a second-place finish at the AtomSkills international championship in quantum technologies. On top of all that, she has professional experience at the Russian Quantum Center, the MTUCI Quantum Center, and the R&D department of Sedatec-Inform LLC.

Outside of academics, Anna finds inspiration in philosophy and staying active — her two go-to ways to keep body and mind in balance.

✍️ We caught up with Anna to chat about her journey to Skoltech and what her first few weeks have been like. Check out our slides for all the details!

✨ That’s a wrap on the 13th Innovation Workshop! The project pitches and awards are done, but the best part is yet to come.

Huge congrats to the students — you’ve put in incredible work and now you truly know how to take an idea and turn it into a working tech product.

Here’s to turning these student projects into thriving businesses! We can’t wait to see what you achieve next. 🏆

🌱 Russia is rapidly expanding its soybean production, with the Far Eastern Federal District accounting for about 38% of the national harvest. However, local breeders face a strict climatic constraint: a short frost-free period means soybeans must mature quickly to beat autumn frosts, often resulting in stunted plants with pods sitting dangerously close to the ground.

Researchers from Skoltech, working alongside colleagues from the Far Eastern Research Institute of Agriculture, evaluated 63 soybean genotypes across three growing seasons in Khabarovsk Krai to define the optimal plant architecture for the region.

“The challenge is not simply to make soybean mature earlier,” says Yawar Habib, a junior research scientist at the Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center, the first author of the study, and a Skoltech PhD graduate from the Agrobiotechnologies and Engineering program. “The plant also needs enough architecture to support pod formation and to be harvested efficiently. We wanted to find out whether early maturity could be combined with a taller, better-branched and more harvest-friendly plant type.”

Published in Frontiers in Plant Science, the study reveals that strong branching is surprisingly independent of maturity timelines. This finding clears a path for breeders to develop high-yielding, heavily podded varieties without lengthening the growing season. The team identified four standout genotypes that successfully fuse early maturity with taller stature, robust branching, and higher first-pod placement for seamless combine harvesting.

“For breeders, the value of this work is that it turns a complex set of traits into a clear selection strategy,” says Professor Elena Potokina, who leads agrobiotech research at the Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center. “The next step is to evaluate these promising genotypes more widely across locations and seasons and determine how well the selected architecture translates into yield and harvesting performance under regional conditions.”

Skoltech is part of the VEB.RF Group.