Israel’s STEM Scholar Program Announces New Cohort

The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, which every year brings scholars from the US and Canada to work in Israeli universities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, has announced its latest cohort of 25 participants for the 2023-24 academic year. 

The new cohort includes seven Israelis currently working in STEM fields in North American institutes, who are returning to their native Israel to work variously at Tel Aviv University; the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot; Haifa University; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan. 

The seven will establish state-of-the-art laboratories in their respective universities, which will be jointly funded by the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, Israel’s Council for Higher Education, and the host institutes. 

The program’s stated objectives include supporting future leaders in STEM in Israel and North America; promoting collaboration between the top scientific research institutes in each country; and helping Israeli scholars currently abroad to return to Israel to pursue their work. 

To date, 44 Israelis have participated in the program, alongside American and Canadian scholars, since it began in 2016.  

“We are proud to welcome the 2023 cohort to our lifelong community of Zuckerman Scholars,” said Zuckerman Institute Executive Director in Israel, Lina Deshilton. 

“We thank the Israel’s Council for Higher Education for the continuing strategic partnership that began in 2018, which continues to strengthen Israeli academia and recruiting North American postdocs to Israel.”