About

Now

I am a Research Scientist at the Center for Engineering Systems and Sciences (CESS) at Skoltech, where I research how humans and intelligent systems collaborate in engineering design and engineering education. My work sits at the intersection of project-based learning, AI-mediated feedback, and collaborative design — studying not only whether AI helps engineers and students, but how, when, and at what cost to human judgment.

The path here

My route into this research was not linear. I trained as a civil engineer and spent twelve years in industry, including two years as Deputy CEO of an engineering consultancy — enough time to learn that the hardest problems in engineering are rarely technical. They are problems of coordination, communication, and judgment. That realization led me to an MSc in Cognitive Science, and from there to a PhD in Engineering Systems at Skoltech (2019–2024) — an institute founded and operated in collaboration with MIT, a partnership active when I enrolled.

Research

I study collaboration as a measurable process. My published work includes machine-learning analysis of student team communication in project-based engineering courses, feedback systems for collaborative design, and evidence synthesis on project-based learning. I work across methods: computational analysis of large interaction corpora, controlled experiments on attitudes toward AI feedback, and systematic and umbrella reviews.

Building

I believe research on tools should be grounded in building them. I am the founder of StayTeam, a multi-agent AI platform for engineering project teams, and co-founder of Life On Track, a venture developing AI-augmented brain-stimulation devices for clinical use. I also design and teach courses in engineering systems and innovation, and build educational technology used in live classrooms.