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Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesDean's Office, Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesJakobi 2, r 116-121 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of History and ArchaeologyJakobi 2 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Estonian and General LinguisticsJakobi 2, IV korrus 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Philosophy and SemioticsJakobi 2, III korrus, ruumid 302-337 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Cultural ResearchÜlikooli 16 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Foreign Languages and CulturesLossi 3 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0School of Theology and Religious StudiesÜlikooli 18 50090 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Viljandi Culture AcademyPosti 1 71004 Viljandi linn, Viljandimaa EST0Professors emeritus, Faculty of Arts and Humanities0Associate Professors emeritus, Faculty of Arts and Humanities0Faculty of Social SciencesDean's Office, Faculty of Social SciencesLossi 36 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of EducationJakobi 5 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Johan Skytte Institute of Political StudiesLossi 36, ruum 301 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0School of Economics and Business AdministrationNarva mnt 18 51009 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of PsychologyNäituse 2 50409 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0School of LawNäituse 20 - 324 50409 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Social StudiesLossi 36 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Narva CollegeRaekoja plats 2 20307 Narva linn, Ida-Virumaa EST0Pärnu CollegeRingi 35 80012 Pärnu linn, Pärnu linn, Pärnumaa EST0Professors emeritus, Faculty of Social Sciences0associate Professors emeritus, Faculty of Social Sciences0Faculty of MedicineDean's Office, Faculty of MedicineRavila 19 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Biomedicine and Translational MedicineBiomeedikum, Ravila 19 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of PharmacyNooruse 1 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of DentistryL. Puusepa 1a 50406 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Clinical MedicineL. Puusepa 8 50406 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Family Medicine and Public HealthRavila 19 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Sport Sciences and PhysiotherapyUjula 4 51008 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTprofessors emeritus, Faculty of Medicine0associate Professors emeritus, Faculty of Medicine0Faculty of Science and TechnologyDean's Office, Faculty of Science and TechnologyVanemuise 46 - 208 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Computer ScienceNarva mnt 18 51009 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of GenomicsRiia 23b/2 51010 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTEstonian Marine Institute0Institute of PhysicsInstitute of ChemistryRavila 14a 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Mathematics and StatisticsNarva mnt 18 51009 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Institute of Molecular and Cell BiologyRiia 23, 23b - 134 51010 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTTartu ObservatoryObservatooriumi 1 61602 Tõravere alevik, Nõo vald, Tartumaa EST0Institute of TechnologyNooruse 1 50411 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTInstitute of Ecology and Earth SciencesJ. Liivi tn 2 50409 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTprofessors emeritus, Faculty of Science and Technology0associate Professors emeritus, Faculty of Science and Technology0Area of Academic SecretaryHuman Resources OfficeUppsala 6, Lossi 36 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Area of Head of FinanceFinance Office0Area of Director of AdministrationInformation Technology Office0Administrative OfficeÜlikooli 17 (III korrus) 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Estates Office0Marketing and Communication OfficeÜlikooli 18, ruumid 102, 104, 209, 210 50090 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Area of Vice Rector for ResearchUniversity of Tartu LibraryW. Struve 1 50091 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTGrant OfficeArea of Vice Rector for DevelopmentCentre for Entrepreneurship and InnovationNarva mnt 18 51009 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0University of Tartu Natural History Museum and Botanical GardenVanemuise 46 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0International Cooperation and Protocol Office0University of Tartu MuseumLossi 25 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Area of RectorRector's Strategy OfficeInternal Audit OfficeArea of Vice Rector for Academic AffairsOffice of Academic AffairsUniversity of Tartu Youth AcademyUppsala 10 51003 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa ESTStudent Union OfficeÜlikooli 18b 51005 Tartu linn, Tartu linn, Tartumaa EST0Centre for Learning and Teaching
Researchers of the University of Tartu won the Young Scientist Award and the Young IT Scientist Award
At a festive ceremony held on 6 April President Kersti Kaljulaid presented Leopold Parts, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Computer Science, and Mark Fišel, Chair of Natural Language Processing, with this year’s Young Scientist Award and Young IT Scientist Award respectively.
Leopold Parts, the winner of the Young Scientist Award, leads a research group in the UK at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, one of the world’s premier genomics research centres, and works as a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Tartu. He has a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge. His PhD thesis focused on genetic mapping of cellular traits. Before receiving his PhD, he had studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Tartu.
Parts makes a valuable contribution to science by using the methodology of data science to solve biological issues. His research helps to answer such questions as how we are affected by DNA mutations, how to best interpret biological data and what genes to select as targets in cancer treatment. His academic publications have been published in world-class journals, he has won several grants in fierce competition and methods developed by him have been put to extensive use.
“My group is exceptional in one respect: we are competent in various fields. This enables us to apply the most novel lab and computer methods to understand why children are so similar to their parents in terms of their height, weight, character and the risk of grave hereditary diseases,” said Parts. “I think that there are many excellent young scientists in Estonia worthy of the award by the Cultural Foundation of the President of the Republic. It could be said that I have been fortunate to have really great colleagues and supervisors who have made it possible for me to analyse significant and exciting issues without having to worry about resources or the administrative burden,” he added.
Mark Fišel, the winner of the Young IT Scientist Award, received his PhD from the University of Tartu (Institute of Computer Science) in 2011. After that he completed his postdoctoral studies in Zurich. Currently he heads the Chair of Natural Language Processing of the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Tartu.
As an Associate Professor in Natural Language Processing Fišel focuses on neurotranslation, i.e. neural machine translation systems based on artificial neural networks. This field of research is aimed at teaching such systems to learn to translate by way of using a huge mass of translation examples. More specifically, his goal is to reduce the resource-dependence of machine translation systems. In order to do that, he develops methods that neither require linguistic resources nor depend on the amount and quality of translation examples to the extent they do now.
The practical purpose of his work is to make machine translation available to and useful for private and corporate users. “Our research results are available in an online translation system. When we come up with a good method for teaching the machine translation tool to learn or translate better, we add it to the system. Currently the online demo version can translate from Estonian to English and vice versa. Several linguists are using our tool instead of Google Translate. We are planning to add other languages: Finnish, Latvian and Russian. This spring we’ll launch cooperation with a translation agency that will start using our translation system,” said Fišel.
What exactly he would do with the money prize he couldn’t yet say, but he was positive that a part of it would be spent on a nice family holiday. “My family deserves it because they have supported me patiently during a period while I was writing articles all through the night. In that respect my family has contributed heavily to science. As a researcher I’ll continue to pursue the same direction and analyse machine translation systems further.”
The University of Tartu congratulates the two award winners and the Institute of Computer Science where they both work.
Additional information: Office of the President of the Republic, 631 6202, press [ät] vpk.ee