What unites 10,000 students from all over the world year after year? They compete for 80 positions at the Summer Research Science Institute (RSI) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The unique international program combines scientific theory, technology and practical research. Did you know that since 2001, thanks to the Union of Mathematicians in Bulgaria, two Bulgarian students have been entitled to positions? Because of RSI’s remarkable reputation, America for Bulgaria Foundation began supporting Bulgarian talent in 2010, giving Bulgaria the opportunity to be actively involved in the global system for discovering and developing scientific talents. As you can guess, admission is highly competitive, the selection being an intensive, practically year-round process. This year, the mission proved possible for Ivan Ivanov from the American College in Sofia and Tanya Otzetarova from the High School of Mathematics in Plovdiv.
“The Summer Research Institute has given me the opportunity to spend six weeks at MIT and to work with prominent professors, who welcomed me into their scientific community,” says Tanya Otzetarova. She will never forget meeting 80 students from all over the world with outstanding achievements in mathematics, computer science, biology, physics and chemistry. Their talks made her realize how interesting these sciences were, inspiring her to expand her horizons. Here’s how Tanya describes her work in the program:
“My MIT Summer Research Institute project is in the field of Mathematics. It’s called ‘Boundaries of the number of points in sets of sharp angles’. I am grateful to the America for Bulgaria Foundation for its amazing financial support to the Bulgarian participants in the MIT Institute.”
And now, meet the other participant in the program – Ivan Ivanov. His project is in the field of artificial intelligence, related to the optimization of an innovative model of recurrent neural networks. According to Ivan, the modeling of human thinking through computer technology is one of the fundamental tasks in computer science. A possible approach is the use of an artificial neural network capable of solving logical tasks by mimicking the functions of the human brain.
To Ivan, the most valuable part of his participation in the MIT Summer Research Institute, besides the work on the project, was the unique opportunity to meet and talk to scientific luminaries such as Wolfgang Ketterle (Nobel prize winner in physics, 2001), Eric Maskin (Nobel prize winner in economics, 2007), Dan Harjes, Principal Research and Development Engineer at St. Jude Medical, working on developing brand-new improvements to Ventricular Assist Devices), and Scott Kominers, Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School).
“Thanks to the MIT Summer Research Institute, I was able to meet not only today’s giants in science, but perhaps the geniuses of the future – the other students in the program,” says Ivan.
We wish Tanya and Ivan success and look forward to hearing about their scientific achievements, which just might change the world!
