When we say it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we really mean it: you can only attend the Global Young Scientists Summit (as a student…) once. Yet, by the end of the week, we all agreed that we would return every year if we could. The summit offered a rare opportunity to hear from and interact with Nobel Prize, Turing Award, Millennium Technology Prize and Stockholm Water Prize laureates. Some of us were also selected to give a five-minute pitch to the plenary. Here, we share our personal experiences of this remarkable event.

Lucas Gobatti

The most special thing about this event for me was a sense of scale of scientific impact. Meeting researchers whose work has fundamentally changed how we understand the world, puts one’s own research into perspective. From reshaping our perception of physical reality to reducing the cost of sequencing the human genome from billions of dollars to around a thousand it makes clear why such contributions are recognised with the highest scientific awards. On a much smaller scale, my research on urban greenery was selected for a quickfire pitch: by far the most important presentation I have given in life. You can watch the video here.

Tatiana Akhmetshina

GYSS 2026 was definitely the most special conference of my life. Not because of the credentials in the room—though yes, there were Nobel laureates everywhere—but because these scientific heroes turned out to be approachable human beings who genuinely wanted to talk with us.

My personal highlight was Sir Tim Hunt asking about my quickfire pitch presentation (you can find the recording here). There I was at the conference closing event, explaining my research to a Nobel laureate, and it felt both completely surreal and oddly normal. Like talking to a mentor over coffee, except the mentor discovered cell cycle regulation. The fireside chats captured this perfectly—a format that felt relaxed and natural. We could ask anything, and they answered honestly, sharing conversations about science, failures, career pivots, and what keeps them going.

The fellow participants were just as inspiring. Scientists from different countries and fields, all genuinely curious about each other’s work and excited to learn something new. It had the energy of summer camp, but for people who get excited about research and science. I have to mention the organizers too. They created such a welcoming atmosphere that everything ran smoothly without ever feeling stiff or overly orchestrated.

And Singapore itself! The city is a living testament to what happens when science and technology are prioritized. Exploring the futuristic architecture in my jet-lagged haze made everything feel even more dreamlike (the jetlag definitely added to the surreal quality of the whole experience). I’m deeply grateful to my supervisor, department, and ETH Zürich for making this possible. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’ll carry the inspiration and connections with me for a long time.

Kostiantyn Sakhatskyi

GYSS 2026 in Singapore was a tremendous source of inspiration for both my life and my scientific path. I was genuinely moved by the chance to listen to and speak with some of the brightest scientific minds in the world. One thing that stayed with me was how often the laureates returned to the same idea, each in their own words: breakthroughs rarely arrive like lightning; they come from stubborn curiosity, years of iteration, and a clear sense of why the work matters. Several conversations left a particularly strong impression. Professor B. Jayant Baliga linked decades of semiconductor impact to practical, experience-tested advice on bridging academia and industry. Torsten Hoefler’s urgency about accelerating AI computation — and why it matters for science and society — felt like a direct challenge to think bigger. Konstantin Novoselov’s view of science as an art and his thoughts on how we shape papers to communicate truth clearly have stayed with me since. Beyond the core programme, it was also exciting to explore Singapore with fellow young scientists. Wandering through the city—especially the Marina Bay district—added an extra spark and made the whole experience feel even more special. I returned home with fresh ideas for my own projects at the materials–devices–systems interface, and renewed motivation to pursue research that can benefit society. I’m grateful to ETH Zurich for the nomination, and to the National Research Foundation of Singapore and the GYSS team for creating a week that felt intense, human, and genuinely inspiring.

Mitchell Taylor

What stood out most to me during this event was the people. The energy of the young participants was palpable, and the advice from the laureates was invaluable. I met talented researchers working on a vast array of difficult problems – ranging from water conservation to neuroscience – who were at the same time genuinely pleasant and easy to talk to. Singapore was also the ideal location for the conference, offering a vibrant and modern place for people to further explore and be inspired by.

Eliane Ballmer

Having started my PhD just two months before GYSS 2026, I arrived at the conference in the middle of an inner rollercoaster. Waves of excitement about finally shaping my own project were chasing moments of doubt about what I was doing here, and whether any of my ideas would meaningfully contribute, or even work at all. However, participating in GYSS 2026 reminded me of why I chose to be in science in the first place, and let me rediscover the passion and fascination I have for contributing to unravelling the secrets of this world. GYSS brings together scientists from all over the world, ranging from early-career scientists to established, top scientific minds. The diversity of backgrounds and research interests is truly unique, which allows you to step out of your scientific bubble, acquire new ways of thinking, and look at your field from a completely different perspective. Hearing the Laureates speak about their non-linear trajectories, how moments of uncertainty and doubt were also part of their lives, but how their scientific curiosity, their consistency and their courage to venture from the known into the unknown led to truly remarkable and transformative discoveries, was profoundly inspiring. By the end of GYSS, the conversations I had, the connections I built, and the vibrant energy of Singapore itself had shifted my perspective entirely, leaving me ready to embark on my own scientific journey. I would like to thank D-USYS, where I completed my Bachelor and Master’s studies, as well as ETH Zurich for the opportunity to participate in GYSS 2026. The insights and the spirit I gained will accompany me throughout my scientific career!

Jan Meissner

For one intense week in Singapore, science transcended borders: lecture halls filled with big, bold ideas; conversations over morning picnics turned into spontaneous idea-swaps; and thoughts exchanged between students and Nobel, Turing, and Millennium Prize laureates. I began to sense a sort of momentum: when curious people from many countries and disciplines meet in the same place, progress feels achievable.

What surprised me most was how quickly very different topics began to feel connected. One moment we were discussing how large language models are changing the way we work and think; the next we were diving into quantum computing, personalized medicine, or how new proteins can be designed with deep learning.  Even when these subjects were far from my field of research, the underlying themes were familiar: uncertainty, creativity, and the discipline of testing ideas against reality. Some laureates wove parts of their life stories into their lectures. That not only made them feel more approachable; it also reminded us that behind the breakthroughs that move humanity forward are real people – people who also wrestled with doubts, took uncertain turns, and still found a way through.

ETH Zurich gave me both the opportunity – and the confidence – to step onto the stage for a five-minute Quickfire Pitch. I spoke about my research on methane clumped-isotopes, and how improving the way we “read” methane molecules in the atmosphere can help constrain where methane emissions come from and how they change over time. This time, the challenge wasn’t the science itself, but communicating it: stripping a complex topic to its core without losing its meaning and making it accessible to an audience spanning many fields and levels of expertise. It forced me to notice where I hide behind jargon, where my logic needs sharpening, and where a story carries more truth than a slide full of details. But it also reminded me why I chose this path in the first place: because rigorous science can be both technically demanding and deeply human.

Beyond the sessions, the most lasting part of GYSS was the people: spontaneous debates, shared doubts and hopes, and the feeling that science is an international language – even when our accents, disciplines, and perspectives differ. I came back to Zurich inspired, a little humbled, and grateful to ETH Zurich for being the kind of place that encourages stepping outside your comfort zone. If you are interested in my talk, you can watch the video here.

We are all deeply grateful for the opportunity to attend the Summit. It was both inspiring and humbling, and we would wholeheartedly recommend the experience to other ETH scientists if they have the chance to attend in the future.

Experience the Swiss mountain air, discover Zurich’s Old Town, and work on cutting-edge research projects. The ETH Student Summer Research Fellowship Programme (ETH SSRF), run by the Department of Computer Science, offers this opportunity to around 20 students from all over the world each year. Over a period of two months, programme participants gain initial experience within a research group and enjoy an exciting range of additional activities.  From mountain hikes and trips to the chocolate museum to visits to the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano, the experiences on offer from the beginning of July to the end of August are diverse.

However, the programme has a strong research focus. Students can apply for one of nine specialisms. The options cover the entire spectrum of computer science, from machine learning and programming languages to robotics and bioinformatics.

Ambition as proof

One of this year’s ETH SSRF 2025 participants is Clijo Jose. Hailing from Delhi in India, he is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Initially, he was unsure about applying for the SSRF programme. “I had only dealt with computer science to a limited extent during my studies,” he explains. However, during his first year of the master’s programme, he encountered machine learning and quickly developed a passion for it.

“You don’t have to know everything about your research idea already in advance. The programme offers enough time to formulate and develop the idea afterwards.”

Clijo Jose, SSRF student from India

During his time in Zurich, Clijo was a member of the Natural Language Processing and Educational Technologies Lab research group led by Professor Mrinmaya Sachan. There, he compared the natural and formal language reasoning of LLMs. More specifically, he compared the mathematical reasoning abilities of LLMs like ChatGPT in “Lean” and in English.

Lean is an open-source proof assistant and programming language that assists computer scientists and mathematicians in creating and verifying proofs interactively. “It makes it possible to formally verify a mathematical proof step by step,” Clijo explains. However, “Lean” does not understand natural languages such as English, but only a precise, structured input in the Lean language that combines logic, mathematics and programming constructs.

On the other hand, LLMs such as ChatGPT typically attempt to solve mathematical problems in natural language, but can also be used to synthesise proofs in “Lean” just like code generation. Clijo is working on a dataset and evaluation rubric to compare the performance of LLMs in English and in Lean.

According to Clijo, you should have a rough idea of your research project before the SSRF programme begins. “That doesn’t mean you have to know everything about it already. The programme offers enough time to formulate and develop the idea afterwards,” he explains. “It’s important to show ambition at times like these.”

Clijo particularly enjoyed hiking in Switzerland. “The country has so many wonderful places to visit. At the weekends, when I had time, I wanted to visit as many of them as possible with my friends and marvel at the beautiful lakes and landscapes,” he says.

Bursting the bubble

Matthijs Jansen Op de Haar has had big ambitions for a long time. He once wanted to become a doctor and was passionate about biology. “One day, I tried my hand at programming, which sparked a deep and profound interest in computer science,” he says. Originally from the Netherlands, Matthijs is currently studying for two separate bachelor’s degrees at the University of Twente: technical computer science and business information technology. “During my studies, I realised how diverse computer science is. It can be used across disciplines, whether in finance, biology or history,” he explains.

“Applying for the SSRF programme was my way of bursting my own bubble. It allowed me to broaden my horizons, meet new people and tread closer to my limits.”

Matthijs Jansen Op de Haar, SSRF student from the Netherlands

He works in Professor Mennatallah El-Assady’s Interaction, Visualisation and Intelligence Augmentation research group. There, he conducts research on so-called “mixed-initiative visual analytics systems”. In this context, “mixed initiative” means that a human and a software agent (e.g. a large language model) can both take initiative in carrying out a shared task or objective. And “visual analytics” refers to the domain which studies the visual knowledge representation of data.

Matthijs and his supervisor are investigating the domains in which researchers have already implemented these systems. “We are trying to determine the areas in which such systems – in the future – could prove particularly promising,” he explains.

As soon as he arrived in Zurich, a day before starting research, Matthijs spent an entire day exploring the city with his new friends from the SSRF programme. “We got an overview of the city and visited the Kunsthaus and the Landesmuseum, among other places, and tried lots of different foods,” says Matthijs.

He particularly appreciated the opportunity to exchange ideas with motivated and talented people. “It’s generally easy to get caught up in a bubble and be complacent with your current way of life, the people around you and your own world view. Applying for the SSRF programme was my way of bursting that bubble, allowing me to broaden my horizons, meet new people and tread closer to my limits,” he says.

An efficient algorithm for fighting tumours

Urša Zevnik from Slovenia greatly enjoyed the social aspect of the SSRF programme, too. “I had many great encounters and spontaneous experiences,” she says. For example, she was out and about in Zurich with others, intending only to buy groceries, but the day ended with them spending over two hours marvelling at the fireworks for Swiss National Day.

Urša also greatly appreciated the other SSRF students. “We did all these great things together: we tried fondue, visited different Swiss cities and participated in a swim race in the Limmat River in Zurich. Thanks to this whole experience, I made friends for life,” she says.

“The SRRF programme gave me the opportunity to challenge myself in computational problem-solving, which felt almost like playing a strategy game.”

Urša Zevnik, SSRF student from Slovenia

Urša completed her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. “After that, I wanted to broaden my horizons,” she says. During her gap year, she gained research experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She then began a master’s degree in Stockholm combining biomedicine and bioinformatics. “I think it will become increasingly important in the future to apply computer approaches to other sciences,” she says.

In the Biomedical Informatics Group, led by Professor Gunnar Rätsch, Urša is working on a tool that identifies new targets, known as “epitopes”, for cancer immunotherapy. Epitopes are short protein fragments presented on cell surfaces and recognised by the immune system. The algorithm that Urša is helping to develop is designed to identify epitopes that are specific to cancer cells and can therefore be used to activate the immune system to attack only the tumour. “The danger lies in the fact that if a chosen epitope is also present in healthy cells, the therapy could damage healthy organs,” Urša explains.

Urša’s lack of formal computer science training is not an obstacle for her. “The SRRF programme gave me the opportunity to challenge myself in computational problem-solving, which felt almost like playing a strategy game,” Urša says. “It was engaging and fun, and it solidified my decision to pursue a PhD that applies computational approaches to medical research,” she says.

A single letter becomes a hard problem

Violeta Kastreva also gained valuable experience during her time in Zurich. “I learned more in those two months than I usually do in a whole year,” she says.

Originally from Bulgaria, she is currently studying for a bachelor’s degree at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. As a child, she wanted to become an artist. However, she developed a keen interest in mathematics at an early age, and by the time she was in ninth grade, she had become passionate about computer science, especially theoretical computer science. “I like this kind of theoretical research. It’s not about celebrating small successes day after day, but rather a lengthy process that one day leads to a brilliant idea,” says Violeta.

“The programme feels very challenging, especially at the beginning. You might even think that you’re not good enough for the programme. But if you’ve been selected, you’ve earned your place.”

Violeta Kastreva, SSRF student from Bulgaria

Together with her team in the Algorithms and Didactics Group, led by Professor Dennis Komm, Violeta worked on a project to prove that unary tokenisation is an NP-hard problem.

To oversimplify, NP-hard means it belongs to a class of computational problems for which no efficient solution algorithm has been found. Tokenisation, on the other hand, involves breaking down a sequence of symbols into units called tokens. For instance, if the letters “ABC” frequently appear together, they can be combined into a single token. In unary tokenisation, the “text” uses only one character (for example, “AAAA”). Even in this simple setting, choosing the best split into tokens is NP-hard. She succeeded in establishing this result during her stay in Zurich.

Afterwards, Violeta and her team continued to explore related problems, extending the scope of the work. This contribution is relevant not only to theoretical computer science but also to machine learning, where understanding computational limits helps guide the design of practical algorithms.

Violeta advises future participants in the SSRF programme not to put too much pressure on themselves with regard to their research. “Everything feels very challenging, especially at the beginning. You might even think that you’re not good enough for the programme. But if you’ve been selected, you’ve earned your place,” she says.

During her time at ETH Zurich, she learned how challenging the work of a researcher can be. “It’s not like homework, where you know a solution exists,” she says. “Instead, you often work on things that you can’t be sure actually exist.” However, according to her, you can always bear in mind that your research may contribute to the further development of computer science. Even if you don’t have any groundbreaking results, that’s not a problem. “The lessons you’ve learned along the way are already very valuable,” she says.

This article written by Olivier Nüesch was originally published by Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich.

This summer, check out some the interesting and inspiring journeys of ETH Zurich students who stepped outside the classroom and into innovation ecosystems around the world through ETH Studios.

From collaborating with Bloomberg in New York to exploring machine learning in the Swiss Alps, investigating extraterrestrial life with NASA, and reflecting on Europe’s tech future, these student-authored stories offer a unique glimpse into how ETH talent is shaping global conversations.

Here’s your curated summer reading list, straight from the ETH Ambassadors Blog:

1. SQL, LLMs, Bagels and Skyscrapers – A Journey of 5 ETH Students in NYC

By Maša Nešić, Maurice Hanisch, Eric Nothum, Vinícius Mohr, and Carlo Teufel

What happens when five ETH students step into the heart of the financial world for a 3-day tech challenge at Bloomberg’s New York office? A lot of learning, a lot of inspiration and just enough time for a bagel break. In their own words, “We meticulously worked on the project, exploring our team’s dynamics and attempting to put everyone’s skills to best use.”

Read the story

2. Bridging Innovation and Inspiration – TECH 2025 Heilbronn

By Giancarla Salzarulo

As part of the ETH delegation to TECH 2025 in Heilbronn, Giancarla reflects on the power of global dialogue, the challenges of scaling innovation in Europe, and why being part of ETH means more than just studying. She emphasizes, “I arrived with curiosity and left with inspiration. Being part of ETH Zurich’s story continues to be one of the greatest privileges of my life.”

Read the story

3. Mayhem in New York

By Noè Canevascini

What started as a spontaneous interview turned into a full-blown mentorship adventure in New York City. Noè’s story captures the unpredictability and opportunity that ETH Studio experiences can spark. He says, “Despite the challenges, this experience reinforced my love for tackling new opportunities and mentoring others.”

Read the story

4. Machine Learning Meets Geology: My Internship at SLF Davos

By Paulina Körner

At ETH Studio Davos, Paulina blended AI with earth sciences to explore how computer vision can detect borehole fractures, a step toward smarter, safer geotechnical work. She shares, “One of the highlights of my internship was the people I had the chance to work with. The team at SLF was made up of researchers and professionals from all over the world, each bringing a unique perspective to their work.”

Read the story

5. Learning About Extraterrestrial Life Detection at NASA JPL

By Marco Trentini and Adrian Fuhrer

How do you detect life on a moon of Saturn? During their seven-month stay at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Adrian and Marco focused on developing instruments that can be used to detect life forms on other planets, particularly Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Their work in the Chemical Analysis and Life Detection Lab aimed to understand and utilize the chemical processes involved in detecting life on other planets!

Read the story

ETH Studios

ETH Studios are global innovation outposts where ETH students tackle real-world challenges alongside companies, researchers, and startups. Whether in New York, Heilbronn, Davos, or at the experimental StudioX, students gain entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary experience while contributing to sustainable and tech-driven solutions.

Contact Francesca Caggiula at eth-studios@ethz.ch if you are interested in more information on and about the ETH Studios.

Happy reading!