(From the website) "The Stanford US-Russia Forum (SURF) is dedicated to bringing students at leading Russian and American universities together for research in public policy, business, economics and many other disciplines. Each year twenty American and twenty Russian students are selected for the program, which begins with a fall conference in Moscow followed by eight months of work on collaborative research projects and a capstone conference in the spring at Stanford University. Currently in its seventh year, nearly 300 undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students from Russia and the U.S. have participated in the program." I am specifically involved in the Science, Technology and Engineering (STE) working group as it combines my two interests -- science and Russian studies. In particular, I have become interested in science policy as a result of SURF and I intend to remain involved in sciene policy in the future along with research. A brief overview of the STE working group's project is given below.
Universities and scholars involved in science and technology maintain a relatively apolitical position and play a niche role during times of geo-political crisis. We trace collaboration (e.g. frequency, between whom, on which topic) between Russian and American scholars by means of a probabilistic affinity index of co-authorship data and complement it with first-hand accounts from collaborators to potential unrealized connections. Preliminary results suggest collaboration potential in clinical medicine as well as catalyzing new connections between mid-tier universities. Seed grants have been recommended as a potential mechanisms for stimulating such collaborations.
Conference:Karim M., Paramanova, E., Stepanova, D., Hidden Potential of University-level Science and Technology Collaboration between the US and Russia, Stanford US-Russia Forum Moscow Conference, 2016, talk
Publication:Karim M., Paramanova, E., Stepanova, D., Hidden Potential of University-level Science and Technology Collaboration between the US and Russia, Stanford US-Russia Forum Journal, 2017 (in progress)