The Gala of Romanian Students Abroad
The League of Romanian Students Abroad awarded its prizes for academic excellence in the 2011-2012 academic year, as part of a special gala hosted by Bucharest on Tuesday evening.
România Internațional, 09.01.2013, 16:30
Of the 200 students, master students and PhD students competing for these awards, 50 made it to the final. The jury was made up of leading academic, cultural and media figures. The competition was divided into 8 different categories, namely: the awards for best Romanian student of the year in North America, graduate and post-graduate level; the best Romanian student of the year in Europe, graduate and post-graduate level; the best Romanian student of the year on other continents; the best Romanian Erasmus student of the year; the student of the year in Romania and the special arts award. The grand prize and the title of best Romanian student of the year abroad went to 30 year old Sergiu Pasca, a researcher at Stanford University in the US.
He earned a number of prizes for his research in the field of autism, including an award for innovative post-graduate research from the Stanford School of Medicine and the Sammy Kuo award for best postdoctoral paper in neuroscience at Stanford University. Pasca’s study was published in 2011 by the prestigious Nature Medicine magazine and was considered by the National Institute of Mental Health as being one of the 10 most important studies of the year. Sergiu Pasca introduced himself to the audience.
Sergiu Pasca: “I am a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford University in California, the US, but I have graduated from the Medical School in Cluj Napoca. My research is mainly based on understanding the cellular and molecular causes of autism, a disorder which as you may know, severely affects social communication and for which there is unfortunately no drug treatment available. I feel extremely honoured to receive this award.”
Sebastian Burduja, the president and founding member of the League of Romanian Students Abroad and himself a graduate of the Stanford University, said the Romanian youths who complete their studies abroad are a much needed strategic resource for Romania. He also said that while the solutions to Romania’s problems are well-known, there is often a lack of specialists to implement them. This year’s edition of the gala also saw the launch of the SMART strategy for the Diaspora, a multidimensional strategy to facilitate the return to Romania of Romanian youths, who have graduated from foreign universities.
