Demonstrating leadership
We have created a tight community of scientific luminaries dedicated to discovery and change.
Pictured right: 2023-24 faculty scholar, XXX introduces her lab to Zuckerman peers at Start-up Nation Central in Tel Aviv
Measuring progress by our breakthroughs
Selected breakthroughs from 2023
Revah Lab
The Yadid Regenerative Bioengineering Lab (REBELAB)
What we’ve accomplished and where we are headed
Lina Deshilton, Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program Executive Director
Our achievements at a glance
Over the past six years, the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program Community has experienced dramatic growth.
Scholars
Labs
Participating Universities
Publications
ERC Grants
Women
The Road to my own advanced lab
The impetus behind Israel’s Brain Gain
Alon Ron sets up his lab at Tel Aviv University
Each lab founded in partnership with the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program is a world of promise and progress. The founding of each lab at one of Israel’s eight participating universities, allows a gifted young scientist to return to Israel, design a cutting edge lab from the ground up, and recruit a team of young research fellows and technicians to push the limits of their specific research field.
Each Zuckerman Faculty Scholar is given the opportunity to become the Principal Investigator (PI) of their own lab responsible for conducting and administering all areas of lab operations including setup, management and conduct of research, appeals for funding, financial viability, management of human capital, submissions to first tier scientific journals, with the objective of achieving leadership in their given field.
Each lab is an entire team of research fellows and technicians
Some of these labs have allowed Israeli universities to acquire critical instrumentation and facilities giving access to an ever finer resolution and research capacity. Among these is the most powerful laser in the Middle East at the Ishay Pomeranz lab at Tel Aviv University.
7 labs established in 2023
Revah Lab
The Yadid Regenerative Bioengineering Lab (REBELAB)
45% of scholars recruited in 2023 are women
Fulfilling our vision. Nearing parity.
Promoting women at the highest level in scientific research is critical to ensuring Israel’s position as a leader in basic and applied research, in producing an ever more robust and egalitarian community of academics and in breaking the glass ceiling. We are immensely proud that our program, from postdoctoral exchange through to the faculty program, has attracted a tremendous caliber of women researchers from across the disciplines and in numbers nearly matching those of our male scholars. Each of these women, through her contribution and voice, is inspiring the next generation of peers, and easing the way for other women to pursue scientific research.
Jeana Drake
Assistant Project Scientist and Lecturer and Director of Marine Programming at The Center for Diverse Leadership in Science at University of California, Los Angeles, USA – Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Haifa 2019-2021
Innovating and leading
ERC Grants
The European Research Council (ERC) continues to recognize the important contribution of Zuckerman Faculty scholars to the highest level of research in Europe with three prestigious Starter Grants awarded to scholars in 2023. Israel continues to lead among the top 10 countries by number of ERC grants in Europe.
Excellence and magnitude through
collaboration and partnership
2023 was yet another year (our fifth) of tight collaboration aimed at maintaining the edge in excellence. We continue our strategic partnership with the Israel Council for Higher Education which has allowed our program to root itself and expand to include eight universities and an increase in scholar intake.
The MIT-Israel Zuckerman STEM Fund has supported collaboration between faculty and research scientists at MIT and their Israeli counterparts. In 2023, The MIT-Israel Seed Fund Selection Committee accepted _____ proposals for the 2023-2024 funding cycle.
Established in 2021, the Zuckerman Travel and Research STEM Fund covers costs associated with collaborative meetings and travel, as well as technology, equipment and supplies, faculty and student support, and the publication and dissemination of research between PIs at Israeli Universities and their peers at Harvard. The Zuckerman Travel and Research Fund Selection Committee accepted six proposals for the 2023-2024 funding cycle.
Growing our community
We are honored to have contributed to a profound academic and cultural experience for such a fine group of scholars. Today we count XX alumni many of whom are closely bound to the foundation and to the research they pursued during the program. We are intensely committed to our community, to its needs and to the sensibilities of each of our scholars. We spend great care and resources to ensure communication is fluid between the members of our community, in providing enrichment and networking opportunities and generally in empowering our members inside and outside their labs.
