Terra Research

🎙 Free webinar with Professor Malika Burieva-Atabeg

Why does Central Asia show up so rarely in academic research? And how can you turn that into your biggest advantage?

On October 3, Terra Research is hosting Professor Malika Burieva-Atabeg, a first-generation Uzbek-Turkmen American cultural journalist and university professor. You've probably seen her online: tens of thousands of people follow her on TikTok and Instagram for her videos on Central Asian history, identity and culture.

She'll talk about
📌Why research papers matter so much for top universities?
📌 Why Central Asia is one of the most under-researched regions in the world, and why that's your opportunity?
📌 How media, journalism and marketing connect to real academic research

October 3rd, 20:00 (Tashkent time, GMT+5)

Venue: Terra Telegram Channel

🎁 Stay until the end.
Right after the webinar, we'll announce 3 FULLY FUNDED scholarship spots in Terra's 4th cohort. Both current and prospective students can apply.
Completely free! Mentoring, seminars and your own research paper. Aimed for talented and motivated students!

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🔬 We're so happy to introduce one of our new mentors for Terra's 4th cohort - Ayaulym!

Ayaulym is a freshman at UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry, one of the top-ranked chemistry programs in the world, where she's majoring in chemical engineering.
She was doing real research well before Berkeley. She was part of the selective Summer Science Program (SSP), where she did hands-on lab work and wrote a research paper based on her own findings. She also interned at the Central Asian Ecological Center in Almaty, analyzing soil and water contamination for regulatory compliance reports.

Now she's been accepted into URAP to work with Professor Cesunica Ivey's AQMEL (Air Quality Modeling and Exposure Lab), focusing on air quality modeling and environmental exposure research.

Ayaulym will be teaching in the standard package of our 4th cohort.

🌍 Welcome to the Terra family, Ayaulym!

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💻 One number can decide whether your data stays safe from quantum hackers

🎓 Gulshan Gasymova, a student researcher from Azerbaijan is wrapping up her project. Quantum computers get strong enough to break the encryption that our banking, messaging, and daily digital life run on.

Her research is mainly on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which uses the laws of physics instead of math to keep keys secure. But QKD has always leaned on a fixed guess for how much of the key to “sacrifice” for eavesdropper-checking. Gulshan’s project replaces that guess with an ML model (still in development) that decides it dynamically. She uses more realistic channel conditions.

🎯 Mentors have worked precisely to sharpen the paper and ideas. A very demanding project for a high schooler!

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🧠Research is a state of your mind. Do not start it for any other purpose except sharpening your learning blade.

You notice something worth looking into. Then comes the confusion. Sources usually contradict each other. Days go literally nowhere. If you're never confused then guess you're not researching 🤷‍♂️

A "wait, that's lowk odd" moment. It drives you. You may not see it, but it does. You start testing methods and approaches. This is the only way you turn a hunch into your own knowledge bank enrichment.

A kid testing if plants grow faster with music is doing research! A student re-deriving a formula because the textbook's shortcut felt off is doing research!

You can use your paper in your application's portfolio or in any other spot but that shouldn't be the priority. The idea is to enjoy the exploration of the topic that you love!!!

📰 We've also gathered some great high school journals you might submit papers to before ED/RD cycle deadlines.

- IJHSR (rolling subs)

- Curiex academic journal (rolling subs)

- OJSS journal (fast-track available)

- Penn Science HS journal (due November 1st)

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🔬 Students' results

❗️Our mentee, Kalymtay Galym, has just had his paper, "The Influence of AI on Overconfidence Bias in Investment Decision-Making," published in the Academic Journal of Digital Economics and Stability (Vol. 39, No. 4).

The paper examines whether AI-based investment tools, such as robo-advisors, actually reduce overconfidence bias in retail investors, or merely constrain its symptoms. Great example of behavioral finance meeting applied AI research.

What we are most proud of isn't the publication. It is how Galym got there. Mentors did a tremendous job in sharpening his knowledge and shaping the paper. He got in touch with Rostislav Lisnevsky, PhD, Associate Professor at Astana IT University, who co-authored the paper with him.

That's a principle we try to live by at Terra Research. Co-authorship isn't a favor you hand to whoever's around. It goes to whoever actually rolls up their sleeves and helps you. Galym chose to work with Terra because of our principles. That's the right call, and it shows in the final result.

#️⃣ Congrats, Galym - well earned.

open-access journal - https://journal.academicjournal.online/index.php/economics/article/view/1665

#results

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Class of 2031. College application deadlines are not far away...

The 4th cohort of our research program is now open! 🥳

Our mentees have finished their research drafts together with Stanford, Boston University, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell, USC, UMelbourne and many other prestigious affiliates (PhDs mostly)

This cohort, students go from zero to a completed research paper - with the opportunity, based on performance, to co-author with experts from leading institutions and submit to prestigious international high school journals like International Journal of High School Research & OJSS, not just local ones.

Classes meet twice a week, plus weekly 1-on-1 mentoring for personalized feedback.

You will be mentored by:

Zhangerey Bekbulat - Yale '30 (STEM) AI research honored by the President of Kazakhstan

Kamilla Sobirkhonova - Queen Mary '29 (Social Sciences & Humanities) EPQ dissertation on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Mahmud Khamraev - USF '30 (Humanities) Published research, co-authored with a UPenn professor

Amrit Vignesh - Princeton '28 (Data Science) Published in the Wharton Journal of Sports Analytics

Aurelius Vasikhanov - Emory '30 (STEM) Pioneer Research alumnus, 71-page research paper

And...

Kibriyanur Abdugafarova - Notre Dame, PhD Candidate (STEM) First-author, Q1 journal publication; IChO Bronze Medalist.

Hint... She will be a mentor "only" for a premium track group.

Deadline: September 15th, 11:59 PM. Only 25 seats available. Program starts September 20th.

Something new is also coming for STEM students who want an even deeper level of mentorship. A PhD from Notre Dame University brought to teach you directly. To be uploaded soon 👀

Link to apply to standard package 🔗 Google forms

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😳x 🔬
Our cofounder Zhangerey is officially a Yale student now - and he sent us this shot of Harkness Tower's bells ringing across campus.

From getting the most valuable AI research award from the President of Kazakhstan and building Terra Research to walking these amazing halls.

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Feeling hot during summer?
We know the reason!

🔬Sherozbek Uktamov, a student at Terra, built an important neighbourhood-scale heat risk assessment for Tashkent. He worked closely with professors from Stanford and HKUST.

❗️Using the IPCC hazard-exposure-vulnerability framework, he mapped all 585 mahallas. Summer land surface temperature from Landsat 8 and 9, population density, and the share of residents under 10 and over 65. Processing was done in Google Earth Engine and QGIS.

❓His finding is beyond the high school level. Heat in Tashkent is nearly uniform and uniformly severe, reaching 40 °C in about 94% of neighbourhoods. Everyone in the city is hot. What separates neighbourhoods is who lives there, which is why risk clusters sharply into 127 high-risk areas in the northwest and near the airports.

Central Asia is badly understudied in environmental justice research. This is a great contribution to the betterment.

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🔬 New milestone!
2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ subscribers

Thank you for being a part of the Terra family. We are dedicated to providing the most valuable content and research education in the Central Asian region. Fire news coming soon. Way to conquer and way to serve the academia!

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📥 What a professor sees when your email lands

We've walked 60+ students through cold outreach. The same five mistakes kill the reply rate every time.

1. The copy paste email
"Dear Professor, I'm interested in your research and would love to work with you." They get this ten times a week. Name the paper. Name the finding. Twenty minutes of real reading beats a page of enthusiasm. Remember that

2. Writing an essay
They're busy. Who you are, why them, what you want. That's the whole email.

3. Making it about you
Your GPA and SAT don't answer the question they're actually asking: why me and not anyone else? Tie your interest to their work.

4. Asking for too much too soon
"Will you supervise my project for six months?" from a stranger is an easy no. Start with one sharp question about their research, or ask if they're open to a short call.

5. Not checking what they work on now
Quoting a paper from 2018 tells them you skimmed one search page. Look at what they published this year.

Please, do not only email professors. PhD students read their inbox, have time, and say yes far more often. Split your list wisely.

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🏴 3 Red Flags You Should Avoid When Writing a Research Paper

As a newbie, sometimes it’s easy to miss important parts of writing a research paper, which can then lead to serious consequences when your work is being reviewed.

1🚩 Choosing a topic just because it sounds “impressive”
Doing research on some astrophages or any other aliens is, of course, impressive, unless you can actually do it. It’s better to choose a more modest topic and provide an accurate, well-supported analysis of your content.

2🚩 Citing outdated sources
Don’t hesitate to double-check whether the source and its publication date are relevant to your topic. Discussing digital technologies or AI while relying on a 50-year-old source might be really risky.

3🚩 Skipping the literature review and jumping straight into writing
If you do this, it may become obvious that you have mostly used AI for your work. No additional comments needed.

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3 Steps - To make your research paper unique 🔍

Anyone can pick a topic. Surely! But standing out in research takes more than passion. A strategy.

1️⃣ Find the gap, not the topic
Don’t just pick a broad subject you’re passionate about. Do what? Read 5-10 papers in your area and look for the open questions. The sections where researchers admit “more study is needed" are important. That’s where your contribution lives.

2️⃣ Combine two fields
A cross-disciplinary approach + an uncommon lens = uniqueness. Think data analytics × sports, or any pairing that others haven’t explored. The overlap is that spot where fresh ideas are born.

3️⃣Use underrepresented data
Don’t just repeat a US-based study. Bring in an interesting Central Asian context instead. Underrepresented data isn’t just original - it’s genuinely valuable to the field.

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