Celebrating Israel at 70

The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program Celebrates Israel at 70
Celebrating Israel at 70
Celebrating Israel at 70
May 1, 2018
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Tel Aviv, Israel

The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program’s celebration of Israel at 70 stood out as perhaps the only one to focus on Israel’s academic accomplishments, and to note the importance of academic collaboration between the US and Israel.

Presidents and rectors from seven universities in Israel joined the event to recognize the achievements of the Zuckerman STEM Leadership program, which has been running for barely three years.

Seven universities in Israel now host Zuckerman scholars, and close to 40 universities in the US. The program has helped to establish eight brand new laboratories at four Israeli universities so far, with an additional four new ones expected each year.

At the evening, we celebrated the Israeli government’s recognition of the program by publicly thanking the representatives of the Israel Council for Higher Education, who provided the matching funds to make possible the expansion to seven Israeli universities. For the academic year 2018-2019, the program will grow to 82 scholars, many of whom were at the celebration.

Distinguished guests from the United States included Aryeh Lightstone, representing the US Embassy in Israel, who was welcomed by Zuckerman Institute trustees Eric Gertler and James Gertler.

Professor Yachin Ivry, Zuckerman Faculty Scholar in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion, and Principal Investigator at the Technion’s Nano & Quantum Functional Structures Laboratory, spoke about the human eye, and about his work developing light detectors that are both fast and efficient in their use of resources.

 

All the best labs and libraries are nothing without investment in human capital. Excellence doesn’t come from inbreeding, but from bringing people in from the outside.
- Daniel Zajfman
President, Weizmann Institute of Science
Without more students arriving here, we will not have a proper system of higher education in Israel. The Zuckerman Institute program is central to our multi-year program.
- Yaffa Zilbershats
Chair, Planning and Budgeting Committee, Israeli Council of Higher Education