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The Estonian Academy of Sciences is headquartered on Kohtu Street in Tallinn at the very pinnacle of Toompea, or Dome Hill, the highest spot in the Old Town.
If this impressive stone building with its ornate dangling chandeliers, carved wooden doors, and door handles fashioned in the shapes of mermaids and other imaginary creatures seems palatial, that’s because it is. Originally it was a residence of the powerful Ungern-Sternberg family and constructed in the 1860s. It has long been in the hands of the Academy though, which uses its grand rooms for grand, catered events.
It was also the setting for a conference called Estonian Young Scientists Abroad that was held on 3rd of January. The event featured 14 talks from promising Estonian scientists whose studies have taken them far from their homeland on far-ranging topics, from applying machine learning to analyze physics data to using CRISPR to identify the causes of drug resistance in cancer.
It was not the first gathering of young scientists abroad to be held by the Academy of Sciences. Similar meetings took place in 2016, 2018, and in 2023. The conference was organized and funded by the The Estonian Young Academy of Sciences (EYAS) and supported by Trigon Capital, a Tallinn-based holding company.
First Contacts
According to Kadi Liis Saar, a scientist at the University of Cambridge and member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, its aims are manifold. It allows young scientists working abroad to present their research in their native language and in their home country to peers. But it also helps them to establish and maintain their professional network in Estonia.
“Such first contacts, often made through conferences, are critical and sometimes decisive in the scientific world,” said Saar, a chemical engineer and biophysicist who first moved to Cambridge in 2010.
Given the international nature of science, she noted, some researchers often leave when they embark on their studies, without ever having established a professional network in Estonia.
The conference has traditionally been held every two years, though it paused during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In general, Saar said, it has filled the large hall of the Academy, with around 80 participants. Presentations are representative of different disciplines.
This year’s conference featured talks by Marek Rei, a senior lecturer of machine learning at Imperial College London; Joosep Pata from the Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (KBFI) in Estonia, who previously was a researcher at California Institute of Technology, and whose talk focused on machine learning in fundamental physics data analysis; Martin Jakoobi from the Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry in Toulouse, France, who described his work in organometallic compounds and nanoparticle synthesis; and Ülle-Linda Talts, a researcher in the optical nanomaterial group at ETH Zürich. And that was just the first session, which Saar moderated.
Saar said that at the University of Cambridge, such interdisciplinary presentations are common due to the collegiate nature of the university. Most research institutions, she noted, are run through faculties, which means that scientists don’t often present their work to those who aren’t familiar with the field. This created an interesting opportunity for the scientists who shared their work at this meeting.
“According to some young researchers, presenting to such a wide audience has been a considerable yet rewarding challenge, as presenting research beyond the experts in one’s own field is a crucial skill,” said Saar.
The Power of Machine Learning
It’s hard to gauge which talks were best received by those present. A brief survey of participants’ showed that all of the presentations were popular and interesting. However, talks that focused on machine learning did raise some eyebrows among the attendees.
Joosep Pata, who did his PhD at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and his postdoc at CalTech, is now a senior researcher in KBFI’s CERN group (Estonia became a full member of CERN, the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research, last year). Pata said of the conference that it was a “good place to network with other researchers who have a similar profile and connection to Estonia,” as well as a chance to present his work in the Estonian language.
Pata has been developing applied AI methods for scientific datasets, specifically high-energy physics data from CERN and astrophysical data from the European Space Agency‘s Gaia satellite. AI has allowed CERN researchers to overcome the limitations of traditional methods to, for example, reconstruct particle trajectories from hundreds of thousands of data points. Using an AI model built along similar lines to ChatGPT, Pata and fellow researchers can process these data points without greatly expanding the computational power needed to do so.
“We were able to run our model on three different supercomputers with no modifications,” Pata pointed out. “If you wanted to do this with the alternative approaches, you might need to spend years hand-crafting code for specific computers,” he said. Pata added that he and fellow researchers are now working towards applying this method in the current and future CERN experiments.
“The great thing about such AI-based data analysis methods is also that they can be applied to adjacent fields,” he noted. He said his group is now collaborating with researchers from Tartu Observatory and the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands to develop AI-based tools to study the distribution of dark matter in the galaxy.
“My main message is that AI can help to analyze scientific datasets and lead to new knowledge,” said Pata. “To develop know-how for the new economy, we need to support returning researchers in establishing their career in Estonia, while also engaging with top researchers through collaborations around the world.”
A Matter of Dark Matter
Taavet Kalda, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, similarly addressed the opportunities presented by maching learning during his talk, as well as its pitfalls. He noted that astronomy has in recent years produced all-sky surveys, giving researchers access to billions of measurements, which has necessitated the use of data-driven approaches. But machine learning has its limits.
“We have a very biased, Earth-centric view into the universe, where if a star is hidden beyond a dust cloud or blocked by another star, then it will remain so, no matter how hard we look,” Kalda noted. “As such, accounting for incompleteness, or the lack of data, is very important in astronomy.” He also pointed out that machine-learning based approaches must be applied carefully, as they can be difficult to interpret and it’s also difficult to properly embed one’s knowledge of physics into these models.
In his presentation, Kalda discussed his attempt to model the solar neighborhood and to infer the total matter distribution near the sun using a data-driven method and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the approach. This, he noted, can shed light into the distribution of dark matter, matter that is not visible to the naked eye but rather only via its gravitational effects.
“Measuring the local dark matter distribution allows us to compare the predictions of various theoretical models for the still unknown nature of dark matter,” Kalda said.
He added that he found the conference valuable because of the mix of attendees at different stages in their careers. “I rarely come in contact with other Estonians, so the conference was a good opportunity for that,” he said.
Enticing Scientists Back
Since 2023, the Estonian Young Scientists Abroad conference has featured a panel discussion that has become a centerpiece of the event. This year’s panel focused on how Estonian scientists working abroad could meaningfully contribute to Estonian science, even if relocating to Estonia was not an immediate or preferred option.
The panel included Maris Laan from the Estonian Academy of Sciences and a molecular genetics profesor from the University of Tartu; Erik Abner, a geneticist from the University of Tartu‘s Institute of Genomics and a member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences; Allan-Hermann Pool, an assistant professor of neuroscience from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; and Katrin Kiisler, head of the R&D Policy Department at the Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia.
All of them emphasized the importance of maintaining strong connections with peers and leaders at Estonian academic institutions, particularly those closely aligned with their areas of research. For young scientists without an existing network in Estonia, events like this conference can serve as a valuable opportunity to introduce themselves, highlight their work and build initial connections. “Home is home, but home is also people,” commented Abner during the session. “And it’s easier to settle in a place when you have support from the people around you.”
Laan echoed this sentiment. “Community is especially important and the Academy of Sciences serves as a key networking point,” she said. “There aren’t so many Estonian scientists working abroad,” she noted. “We’re not talking about thousands of people, but rather dozens.”
Laan also higlighted the need for practical measures to entice Estonian scientists back to Estonia. She noted that in the UK, the Wellcome Trust provides awards to early-career researchers. This can include a salary for the grant holder, plus funding for research-related expenses. “There should be practical moves from the state if they would like young scientists to return,” she said.
Pool, who is based in the US, expanded further on funding challenges in Europe. He observed that the starting grants offered by European institutes are significantly smaller than those in the US, particularly for early-stage researchers launching their own groups. “There are few grants available in Europe that allow young scientists to effectively kick-start their independent research group. Often you first have to secure and accept a position and then hope you get awarded a prestigious grant, such as one from the European Research Council,” he said. “In the US, these two come hand in hand with institutes providing substantial starting packages to young researchers just starting their research groups.”
Kiisler said more could be done to welcome scientists home. “Estonian researchers should feel welcome. Having a place to go is just as important as having a desire to return,” Kiisler said.
The Importance of Networking
Jaak Vilo, a new vice president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and a professor of bioinformatics at the University of Tartu, said that the Estonian Young Scientists Abroad conference was important for Estonians starting their careers who are working outside Estonia.
“The Estonian research community is very small, and fortunately every year Christmas attracts people home, which makes this the best time to gather researchers from different disciplines who are currently residing abroad,” said Vilo, who attended the event. He noted both the quality of the science presented, as well as the ability of the presenters to discuss it in a way that everyone present could understand it. He praised the mix of PhD students and more established scientists. Vilo added that the event allows universities to “better scout scientists currently living abroad,” as universities worldwide are always on the lookout for new talent.
Vilo said that the panel discussion focused on the bottlenecks in terms of project-based and longterm research careers and funding for Estonian scientists, but he also pointed out that in the IT field, half of the academic staff employed in Estonia arrived from outside the country, meaning that if more Estonians were enticed to return, “Estonian universities would certainly be interested.”
Jana Holmar, a director and assistant professor in the department of health technologies at Tallinn University of Technology, also presented at the conference. She described both her experience as a scientist at the Institute for Molecular Cardiovascular Research at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, where she worked from 2016 to 2021, as well as her return to TalTech.
“I wore many hats to this event,” she said of her participation. Not only was she a young scientist who had worked abroad, she was also there representing her own university.
“This shows that there are places to return to,” said Holmar, “and I hope that perhaps in the future there will be opportunities to collaborate with both the speakers and other audience members,” she said. She also stressed that the conference gave scientists the opportunity to better know each other, which should pay off dividends in the future through collaboration.
“Such an event provides an opportunity to network with other young researchers as well as top scientists in Estonia,” said Holmar. “Relationships are capital.”
This article is written by Justin Petrone. This article was funded by the European Regional Development Fund through Estonian Research Council.
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