Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.

SigmaCamp 2013: Faculty

Math

Professor at Stony Brook University
Alexander Kirillov

Alexander Kirillov is a professor in the Math Department of Stony Brook University. His research is in representation theory, quantum invariants of knots and low-dimensional manifolds, and Topological Field Theory. He has been working with high school children, teaching math circles and gifted classes since his own high school graduation. In addition to math, he also enjoys hiking, volleyball, and robotics - he is the coach of Islandbots robotics club.

Physics

Assoc. professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Deputy Director of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook University, NY
Sasha Abanov

Sasha Abanov is an associate professor of physics at Stony Brook University and a deputy director of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics. His research is in theoretical condensed matter physics and in mathematical physics. He is mainly interested in systems whose properties are defined by the laws of quantum physics. Some examples of such systems are superfluids, superconductors and Quantum Hall effect systems. Sasha enjoys teaching physics and mathematics at different levels. He has a lot of experience in teaching school students in various summer camps and math circles.

Physicist, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Boris Podobedov

Boris is an accelerator physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). He got his PhD from the Stanford University Department of Applied Physics. His expertise is to design, build, and operate large particle accelerators. These are mostly used as colliders for high energy and nuclear physics research, or serve as light sources that provide powerful X-ray beams to researchers in many different fields of science. Having spent two decades working with light source accelerators at BNL and elsewhere, Boris recently joined the Electron-Ion Collider project at Brookhaven, which will be building the most powerful collider-accelerator in the US. As you might guess, Boris’ job has a lot to do with all aspects of electricity and magnetism, and this is exactly the topic of the Semilab he is teaching at Sigma. For fun, he really enjoys fishing as well as playing ping-pong.

Director of SchoolNova Weekend Academic Enrichment Program
Marina Polonskaia

Theoretical biophysicist by training, Marina Polonskaia came to US and made a sharp turn in her career: she became a molecular biologist. After working in this field for 11 years (Chicago, Boston, Stony Brook), she made another sharp turn and became a Director of an academic enrichment program at Stony Brook. The program is known to many children in and around Stony Brook as SchoolNova. While in high school Marina herself was a student of a similar program as well as a student of Krasnoyarsk Summer School for gifted children in Russia. She returned to that summer school as a counselor and lecturer while in undergraduate and graduate school, and continues to travel to teach in Siberia almost every summer since 2006 (apparently she loves to travel). Marina is a faculty of SigmaCamp from its inception and once again she is happy to spend a week among interesting and talented people working in the camp.

Theory & Computation, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY
Alexei Tkachenko

Alexei Tkachenko is a theoretical physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory working on nanoscience and in the field called soft condensed matter. He studies problems that range from from living matter (DNA, proteins, membranes) to nanoparticles, plastics and even sand. He also teaches physics at School Nova. At SigmaCamp, Alexei, together with Tanya Zaliznyak, is responsible for the tastiest of all the semilabs, called "The Science of Cooking".

Physicist, Neutron Scattering, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY
Igor Zaliznyak

Igor Zaliznyak is a Physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He uses scattering of neutron particles to study microscopic magnetism in various materials, searching to discover and understand such properties that would lead to future technological advances. In his everyday professional activity, various aspects of Physics and Mathematics, many of which are already taught in high school, are used in a quest to understand how the nature works. Igor is eager to share his passion for science and enthusiasm for experimentation with students, introducing them to various aspects of Physics and Math that are used in his everyday research. Igor firmly believes that physical and mathematical knowledge and erudition acquired at school age, on par with arts and literature, makes for a unique individual, and provides solid foundation for everybody's success in his/her future life. In his free time, Igor likes to read popular Math and Science books and solve problems, puzzles and brain teasers. He also taught 9th and 10th grade Math at School Nova.

Biology

Research Scientist, School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Stony Brook University
Lena Yakubovskaya

Lena is a molecular biologist. The primary subject of her interest is the protein-DNA interactions, and Lena has studied many of them using such state-of-the-art techniques as X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and various spectroscopic methods. However, during her work, Lena came to the conclusion that even the most sophisticated device does not make you smarter: Despite the stunning technological progress, humans’ own brains are still their most powerful tool. The thing Lena likes the most is the company of intellectually like-minded people. Lena and her friends got together every summer to talk about science, art, and music. Then they realized that their group would be incomplete without a young generation, so they invited motivated and talented kids to join their company, which they called Sigma. We are inviting you to become a part of our community!

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Genetics, Department of Biology and Ecology, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Vyacheslav (Slava) Yurchenko

Slava Yurchenko is a molecular biologist by education, training and the way of thinking. After spending several years in some of the best universities in the United States, he has recently established his own laboratory in the Czech Republic. His group is tackling some of the fundamental questions of life, such as evolution of eukaryotes. He is also involved in research on parasites and their relationships with the host. Slava has been a faculty of SigmaCamp from its very beginning 9 years ago.

Research scientist in the lab of Protist Genomics at the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Tatiana Yurchenko

Tatiana Yurchenko, Ph.D. is a research scientist in the lab of Protist Genomics at the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic. Her way back to scientific research was long and eventful. Having graduated from the Department of Applied Math and Cybernetics at Moscow State University, she never finished her PhD as her family had to move to the U.S. Tatiana spent many years working as a software engineer and project manager in IT and multimedia companies, gaining real world computer science experience. Her passion for science led her back to the student bench. She recently finished her PhD studies in bioinformatics and works happily in scientific research.

Pharmacology Department, Stony Brook University, NY
Tatiana Zaliznyak

Tanya Zaliznyak is a research scientist in the pharmacology department at Stony Brook University. Her scientific interest lies in the field of structural biology and molecular modeling. She loves to use her knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology in the kitchen, creating tasty dishes that satisfy her passion for cooking.

Chemistry

Researcher, Department of Pharmacology at Stony Brook
Mark Lukin

The focus of Mark Lukin's scientific interest are nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) - the molecules responsible for storage and transfer of hereditary information in living organisms. How does DNA get copied? What happens when DNA molecules breaks? To answer these, as well as many other questions, Mark needs to prepare artificial (modified) nucleic acids and their building blocks, the crazy compounds that normally do not exist in nature. The only way obtain them is to do a chemical synthesis, the thing Mark likes the most. Besides that, Mark loves music, history, Greek philosophy, and science fiction. When he was young, he loved to do simple but spectacular chemical experiments. Recently, he realized he still loves to do that.

Computer Science

Managing Director, Investment Banking Technology, UBS (USA)
Yuri Salkinder

Yuri Salkinder’s career spanned academia, telecommunications and financial technology. Yuri started in research in human-computer interaction, then moved on to help create software development tools for Voice response systems. He participated in creation of some standards in wireless messaging. Nowadays Yuri is dealing with technology that fuels financial markets. Yuri loves art, music, movies and good math puzzles. Yuri has been a member of the Sigma Camp staff since 2013 and is returning this summer.

Art

Freelancer
Victoria Bershadsky

Vicka has a degree in Economics and Art History. She worked with numerous cultural organizations and was involved in various history, art, and anthropology programs. Victoria still spends a lot of time on arts and history. At SigmaCamp, Victoria wants to show a different angle of life by opening up the world beyond science.

SigmaCamp Associate Director
Marina Kreydina

Marina Kreydina has a degree in Physical Education and Sports Management. Nowadays she is engaged in medical business management. Marina loves specialized summer camps and has been a staff member of a number of them. She has been a member of the Sigma Camp staff since 2013 and is returning this summer.