Four Cambridge undergraduates will become the first university scholars to receive support from a new global education fund created for talented Ukrainian maths and science students whose education has been affected by Russia’s invasion.
Four Cambridge undergraduates will become the first university scholars to receive support from a new global education fund created for talented Ukrainian maths and science students whose education has been affected by Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian students – including some of the brightest of their generation – have faced unimaginable hardship and have had their education and futures disrupted
Ken Griffin
The Ukraine Math and Science Achievement Fund launched this academic year with a $3 million donation from Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of U.S.-based global financial firm Citadel. The new multi-year scholarship program has been established to help exceptional Ukrainian students continue their science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) studies.
“Ukrainian students – including some of the brightest of their generation – have faced unimaginable hardship and have had their education and futures disrupted,” Ken Griffin said. “The Ukraine Math and Science Achievement Fund aims to ensure that these brilliant students have the opportunity to realise their academic ambitions and leave their mark on the world.”
The fund will provide tuition assistance and other support to help dozens of top Ukrainian students affected by the war pursue STEM studies at leading educational institutions around the world and will be administered by the Digital Harbor Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland.
Three of the initial Griffin Scholars hail from Lyceum 27 in Kharkiv, a city in Ukraine that has been particularly hard hit by the war. They include Ihor Pylaiev, an International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) two-time gold medalist who, with a perfect score, was this year’s overall IMO winner; IMO two-time silver medalist Svyatoslav Deniskov; and IMO bronze medalist Vadym Hasseiev. Four additional Griffin Scholars – Liza Horokh, Roksolana Ivanchuk, Mariia Mikhnovska, and Anton Havrilyuk – studied in Ukraine's capital city of Kyiv. Like their Kharkiv peers, they have each medaled at various Olympiads, share a passion for maths and problem-solving, and have endured war-related hardships.
The fund has enabled four of these outstanding students to accept offers to study at the University of Cambridge this autumn; the three other members of the first cohort are attending Hills Road Sixth Form College in the City of Cambridge. Future funding rounds beginning later this year will allow additional talented Ukrainian students to pursue educational opportunities around the world and scholarships to study at universities in Europe and the United States.
The Ukraine Math and Science Achievement Fund builds on an effort led by Dr. Ferenc Huszár, an associate professor of computer science at Cambridge; Dr. Iryna Korshunova, a machine learning researcher; and a group of volunteers who have been providing the displaced Olympiad community from Ukraine with access to financial support, laptops, and educational resources since the start of the war. After learning about this grassroots effort, Ken Griffin was inspired to amplify this work and further support top STEM students seeking to pursue their studies and maximise their potential.
“The talent and determination these students have shown in recent months is inspiring,” said Dr. Huszár. “Despite the stress and uncertainty they have faced, they went on to solve complex problems, to learn, and to compete with incredible success. This fund not only enables them to study at top schools, but also recognises the hard work and talent of these students and their teachers.”
In addition to this new scholarship fund, Griffin’s firms, Citadel and Citadel Securities, also sponsored Ukraine’s Informatics Olympiad team earlier this year, when the war jeopardised the team’s ability to compete internationally. The funding enabled a group of students to train in Poland, compete in Olympiad competitions across Europe, and travel to Indonesia in August to compete in the International Olympiad in Informatics, the most prestigious computer science competition for secondary and high school students around the world.
The Ukrainian team placed first among all the European teams and sixth globally at the competition.
"The Olympiad has changed their lives,” said Anton Tsypko, the coach of the Ukrainian Olympiad team. “In the midst of an incredibly challenging period, it has opened new doors for these talented students and put them on a path to pursue their studies at top universities. I look forward to the contributions they’ll make within their academic communities and society more broadly.”
Members of the Olympiad team are among the students eligible to apply for scholarships from the Ukraine Math and Science Achievement Fund as they look to continue their studies at the world’s top universities upon graduation. Applications for funding this year and next will be accepted on a rolling basis beginning later this autumn at ukraineachievementfund.org.
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