NL-Spreads

United States - Israel Educational Foundation
קרן חינוך ארצות הברית - ישראל
صندوق التعليم الولايات المتحدة - إسرائيل
1
THE FULBRIGHT
ISRAEL ALUMNI
NEWSLETTER
A Semiannual Newsletter for the
Fulbright Alumni Community in Israel
12/15

TABLE
OF
CONTENTS
3 A Word from the Executive Director
Dear Alumni,
A WORD FROM THE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
3 Note from the Alumni Coordinator
4 Social Commitment in Action
7 A Breath of Fresh Air
Happy Holidays from the Fulbright Commission!
As we wrap up this eventful and interesting year, we look toward our sixtieth anniversary year with
fresh focus on our new campaign, Migrating Knowledge: The Fulbright Network on Both Sides of
the Atlantic.
Our commission priority remains to aid the exchange of knowledge by contributing to the development
of professional and academic ties between Israel and the United States. Your Fulbright years are
behind you, but the knowledge you brought back with you cannot be quantified or restricted by time
or place. Stay connected—we aim to engage alumni in our events more than ever before.
10 Duly Noted
18 Facetime
Best wishes,
Anat
alapidot@fulbright.org.il
2 3
22 From the Lab: Innovations and Discoveries
24 Humphrey Fellows Corner
26 Alumni Impact
28 Spotlight on an American Fulbrighter
30 One for the Books
34 Fulbright Awards
38 2015 American Fulbright Fellows
Dear Fulbright Alumni,
NOTE FROM THE
ALUMNI COORDINATOR
A new season has begun. We now have a Fulbright Alumni Association of Israel (FAAI), including
a Haifa-Northern Branch, a new website, social media platforms, and a reactivated Friends of
Fulbright Association. On the horizon are more regional chapters, university-based Fulbright hubs,
and a pilot mentoring program— all of which are under way. We are also organizing a network for
our Hubert H. Humphrey (HHH) and other non-academia-based alumni professionals. In 2016 we
will also celebrate USIEF’s 60th anniversary.
In short this coming year is an exciting, dynamic time to connect with fellow alumni and reach out
through FAAI activities and events. Your participation is vital to our alumni community—I hope you
will join us!
Sincerely,
Deborah
dkaufman@fulbright.org.il

SOCIAL COMMITMENT IN
ACTION
requesting asylum and assisted dozens of
asylum seekers. Following their preparatory
work, the Tel Aviv Law School opened a clinic
for asylum seekers, which today handles
dozens of cases per year and has led some
of the impact litigation in the field.
whose immigration was driven by
socioeconomic constraints, similar to those
of refugees. Access to the resources at Yale
and the exchange of opinions with leading
scholars allowed her to shape responses to
critiques of her research.
Dr. Tally Kritzman-Amir
(PhD research, ’06, law, Yale
University) is a senior lecturer
at the Academic Center of
Law and Business in Ramat
Gan. She can be contacted at:
amirtally@clb.ac.il.
Are you involved in a social
commitment project?
Tell us about it. Send an email
to: dkaufman@fulbright.org.il.
Committed to the protection of human rights and the promotion
of a just asylum system in Israel, Tally founded The Clinic for
Migrants’ Rights at the College of Law and Business in 2011.
THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF
REFUGEES BECOMES THE
LEADING RESEARCHER OF
REFUGEE LAW IN ISRAEL
4 5
“All human beings are born free and equal
in dignity and rights. They are endowed
with reason and conscience and should
act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.” This first article of the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
sheds light on the values that influenced Tally
as a young girl. Her grandfather Yosef, who
kept a copy of the Declaration in his wallet,
and the politically active environment in
which she grew up, instilled in Tally a special
commitment to human rights.
Finding herself drawn to law, Tally began
her studies at Tel Aviv University, where
the theory of law, human rights, and
international law particularly interested her.
Tally excelled in her studies, which opened a
door to volunteering at the Yale Law School
Legal Assistance Clinic, where she worked
on asylum cases, preparing briefs and legal
documents on behalf of refugees. Their
situations reminded her of the story of her
grandparents, who were forced to leave
their country during the Holocaust and who
found refuge in Israel. The vulnerable and
exposed state of the refugees made a strong
impression on her.
Tally returned to Israel from Yale just
one day before 9/11. As she watched the
international events unfold, including
changes in US immigration law resulting
from increasingly restrictive security
considerations, a point crystalized: the need
to balance the international obligations
of the state—including the duty to allow
refugees to stay within its borders—with its
legitimate desire to protect its citizens from
potential dangers. Her experience in the US
and the events at the time spurred Tally to
launch a new course: investigating the legal
situation of refugee law in Israel.
She discovered that Israeli refugee law was
in an embryonic stage: very few procedural
regulations overseeing the process existed.
At this point, graduating at the top of her
LLB class at Tel Aviv University, Tally began
to volunteer at the law school’s Clinical
Program. Working alongside one of the
legal clinicians, Adv. Anat Ben Dor, she
researched international refugee law and
the state of refugees and asylum seekers in
Israel. Together they monitored the Israeli
procedure that was then being crafted for
Tally’s next step was a clerkship with then
Deputy President of the Israeli Supreme
Court Justice Mishael Cheshin. A year of
writing draft opinions for Justice Cheshin
and exchanging legal views with him gave
Tally extraordinary experience. Upon
completing her clerkship, she became a
member of the Israeli Bar Association. She
then returned to Tel Aviv Law School for
her PhD, following her passion for refugee
law. She wrote her thesis, “Socio-Economic
Refugees,” under the supervision of one of
Israel’s leading international law scholars
and Fulbright alumnus Professor Eyal
Benvenisti, recently appointed Whewell
Professor of International Law at the
University of Cambridge. Tally then sought
to expand her knowledge of different
aspects of international law, human rights
law theory, and refugee law, returning to
Yale on a Fulbright grant as part of her PhD
research.
Yale became her “intellectual home.” She also
traveled within the US, meeting prominent
scholars in the fields of immigration,
international law, and distributive justice.
This exposure to American refugee law
led Tally to formulate an international legal
framework for the protection of immigrants
After completing her PhD, Tally was
engaged as a postdoctoral Hauser research
fellow at NYU Law School, and later as a
Polonsky postdoctoral fellow at the Van Leer
Jerusalem Institute. In 2009 she joined the
College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan,
where she now serves as a senior lecturer.
Committed to the protection of human
rights and the promotion of a just asylum
system in Israel, Tally founded The Clinic
for Migrants’ Rights at the College of Law
and Business in 2011, which she currently
supervises, working together with its
director, Adv. Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz, and
its former director, Adv. Yonatan Berman.
The work of the clinic keeps Tally’s research
relevant to current issues in refugee law and
policy, reflecting up-to-date issues from the
clinic’s cases.
The clinic aims to provide legal assistance to
the migrant and asylum-seeking population
in Israel, which is generally disempowered
and underrepresented. It cooperates with
NGOs that promote migrants’ rights and
enjoys the generous support of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
It strives to promote the rights of migrants
through impact litigation and advocacy.

Perhaps one of the most important struggles
the clinic took part in was the constitutional
challenge of the Prevention of Infiltration
Law that allowed prolonged detention of
asylum seekers. Over the course of three
petitions to the High Court of Justice, it was
struck down three times because the court
found it violated the constitutional right to
freedom. Hundreds of asylum seekers thus
regained their freedom, owing to these
court decisions.
Working in the Clinic for Migrants’ Rights
is also offered as a course to students
at the College of Law and Business.
Students learn through experience about
substantive human rights and migration law
as well as legal ethics and values of social
responsibility. In addition international
students from leading American and
Canadian law schools visit the clinic every
year for internships, immersing themselves
in the subject of migrants’ rights, working
with the clinic’s clients, and conducting
comparative research to support the clinic’s
ongoing casework. Each year some of the
clinic’s graduates continue to pursue their
interest in migrants’ rights in clinics at top
law schools in the US.
6 7
In the spring of 2015, Tally published a
new book: Kritzman-Amir, Tally. Where
Levinsky Meets Asmara: Social and Legal
Aspects of Israeli Asylum Policy. Tel Aviv:
Hakibbutz Hameuchad and The Van Leer
Jerusalem Institute, 2015. [In Hebrew].
Editing this work, Tally has compiled the
most comprehensive collection of articles
on asylum seekers in Israel. The book
characterizes the communities of asylum
seekers in Israel and describes, both
critically and comparatively, the changing
policy toward them on the part of the
authorities and civil society. It provides a
foundation for study of the topic and for
future research and can also serve as an aid
to policy makers and decision makers. The
book has already been quoted by the High
Court of Justice in several landmark cases.
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR:
THE FULBRIGHT EXPERIENCE
FROM A RECENTLY RETURNED
FELLOW
Ido Sivan Sevilla (MA, ’12, public policy,
University of Minnesota–Twin Cities) is
a fully funded Ministry of Science PhD
candidate in public policy at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. His research focuses
on risk regulation of cyber regimes. He can
be contacted at: sivan018@umn.edu.
LET IT BE
“Good morning, Ido. The Foundation is
very pleased to offer you a fellowship to
pursue your MA degree at the Public Policy
Department at the University of Minnesota.
Should you accept this offer, it could prove to
be an experience of a lifetime!” (Judy Stavsky,
Deputy Director, US-Israel Educational
Foundation, April 2012).
Minnesota? The Twin Cities? I had never heard
about this place beyond classic Beverly Hills,
90210 episodes. After spending an incredibly
inspiring two years in Minneapolis, I couldn’t
be any more grateful to Senator Fulbright and
his visionary idea. I was lucky to experience
this journey with my wife (Anat) and our dog
(Lucy) as our family took off to the Midwest to
encounter new people, new lifestyles, a freezing
climate, and ourselves, developing and learning
about our country through the eyes of others.
Professionally, the Fulbright Fellowship has
significantly boosted my transition from being a
computer scientist and cybersecurity expert to
becoming a social scientist who acknowledges
that the world is much more complex than the
“black/white” paradigm I used to embrace.
This transition goes along with my goal to
bridge the enormous gap between technologysavvy
folks and policy makers.
Our increasing reliance on a resilient
cyberspace requires individuals who will be
able to grasp interdisciplinary methods of
thinking to create a democratic virtual space
that allows economic growth and prosperity
along with the protection of our security
and basic individual rights. I view this as one
of the fundamental challenges of today’s
information society. Thanks to the Fulbright
experience, I’m better positioned to achieve
this ambitious goal: I learned new research
methods, analyzed policy theories, engaged
with policy makers, and was inspired by my
professors. Specifically, I developed close
connections with an economics professor
from my university who, along with his
great family, became our adopted family in
Minnesota. They invited us to all the Jewish
holidays and significantly enhanced our
cultural experience.
“Our family took off to the Midwest
to encounter new people, new
lifestyles, a freezing climate, and
ourselves, developing and learning
about our country through the eyes
of others.”
My wife and I had a clear primary goal in mind:
professional development for both of us. The
first months were challenging. The different
work culture and recruitment style in the US
and the initial language barriers required us
to work hard, quickly create connections,
and thoroughly prepare Anat to become a

candidate for professional positions in the
graphic design and makeup industries. After a
few months Anat became the leading graphic
designer for a construction company (LDI) and
the head of a team of makeup artists in a new
beauty salon in the city. These positions were
highly rewarding and significantly boosted her
current career as an independent designer. A
local newspaper wrote about her work; seeing
her on the cover of a local magazine was
something we could only have dreamed about
at the beginning of this journey.
But perhaps the most significant takeaway
from our journey was the amazing group
of friends who became our family in the
United States. It took us a while to bridge
the cultural gap and adjust to new friendship
styles. Midwestern culture is much less
direct and straightforward than our Middle
Eastern mentality, so the first months were
a struggle. However, we kept socializing and
took initiatives to break the ice. The neighbors
in our building were mostly young adults, and
together we were able to build a community
that met for dinners every other month and
supported each other. Eventually, along with
my fellow students at the university and my
wife’s colleagues from work, we had a robust
network of friends who made the two-year
experience too short. We are still in regular
touch with most of them through mail and
Skype. This is not something you can attach
a value to; these are relationships you cherish
for a lifetime.
8 9
Beyond our cultural and professional
development as a family, I was lucky to have
a few unique opportunities to learn about
the US style of policy making. I worked as
a research assistant for John Brian Atwood,
the former dean of the Humphrey School of
Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota
and former administrator of the United
States Agency for International Development
(USAID). He was writing a book on his policy
experiences, and he shared his insights
and conclusions from a career full of senior
positions in several US administrations. But
the icing on the cake was the summer of 2013,
when I was selected as a Rosenthal fellow
and placed in the office of Congressman Ami
Bera (Democrat-California) on Capitol Hill.
This fellowship provided an amazing
networking opportunity with future US policy
makers. I was one of only a few foreigners to
participate in the program, and I was lucky to
be part of a small office that allowed me to
hold key positions throughout the internship.
I staffed the Congressman in all of his Foreign
Affairs and Science, Space, and Technology
Committee hearings, engaging on a daily basis
with ambassadors, committee chairs, and key
US government decision makers. I observed
how US policy works from within, learned
about the pros and cons of the legislative
process, and experienced the political culture
of Washington, DC. Congress is culturally
different from any organization I had worked
for, and the experience was eye opening and
inspiring. How can an Israeli Air Force captain
be placed in the US Congress? I guess this is
what the Fulbright program is all about.
On top of all these once-in-a-lifetime
experiences, we were lucky to have our first
baby, a boy, in the Twin Cities. Having our
baby within this cultural shift allowed us to
practice a different kind of parenthood. We
spent irreplaceable quality time with our son
visiting US national parks, and we dedicated
the last months of our Fulbright journey to
turning from a married couple into full-time
parents. An experience of a lifetime? Oh boy,
Judy, you have no idea how right you were.
“Professionally, the Fulbright Fellowship has significantly boosted my
transition from being a computer scientist and cybersecurity expert to
becoming a social scientist who acknowledges that the world is much
more complex than the “black/white” paradigm I used to embrace.
This transition goes along with my goal to bridge the enormous gap
between technology-savvy folks and policy makers.”
Ido, his wife Anat and their newborn son Tomer.

DULY NOTED
Share your publications and successes (from the past year)
with the Fulbright alumni community. Please send your
submission to:
dkaufman@fulbright.org.il.
Dr. Uriel Abulof (postdoc, ’07, international relations, New York University) has
published: Abulof, Uriel. “The People Want(s) to Bring Down the Regime: Rethinking
Nationalism and Legitimacy in the Arab World.” Nations and Nationalism 21, no. 4
(2015): 658–680. Dr. Abulof is an assistant professor of political science at Tel Aviv
University, a senior research fellow at Princeton University’s Liechtenstein Institute
on Self-Determination, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
and a research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the
Hebrew University.
Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov (JSD, ’11, law, Columbia University), an assistant professor in the Faculty
of Law, Bar-Ilan University, was awarded the 2014/15 University Award for Excellence in Teaching
in the category of law. He also received an Israel Science Foundation research grant for 2015–2018
for studying “The Impact of Judicial Review of the Legislative Process on Legislative Behavior.”
ARTS, HUMANITIES, AND
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Dr. Ruwaida Abu Rass (Israeli-Arab
Scholarship Program, ’89, English as a second
language, University of Northern Iowa) is an
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher
educator and holder of the UNESCO Chair in
Multicultural Education in Teacher Training
at Beit Berl College in Kfar Saba.
This year she won the international
competition “Innovative University Practices
in ICT in Education,” sponsored by UNESCO’s
Institute for Information Technologies in
Education and the Higher Education Sector.
Dr. Abu Rass also won the International House
Training and Development Scholarship,
presented by the International Association of
Teachers of English as a Foreign Language)
for her efforts to develop autonomy and
reflective thinking skills among her student
teachers. Her recent publications include:
Abu Rass, Ruwaida. “Integrating Human
Values in Education for Promoting Tolerance.”
In Agree to Differ, 112–114. Paris: UNESCO
Publishing, 2015. The book was launched
at the 2015 UNESCO 3rd World Forum on
Intercultural Dialogue, held in Azerbaijan.
Dr. David M. Dror (undergraduate student, ’65, humanities, State University of New York- Buffalo)
was honored with the prestigious Karmaveer Puraskaar Lifetime Achievement Award for 2014/15,
presented by the International Confederation of NGOs (iCONGO) in the category of social service,
for his path-breaking work to empower India and its people. A global-level expert and innovator in
the field of micro insurance, Dr. Dror is the chairman and managing director of the Micro Insurance
Academy (MIA) in New Delhi.
10 11
Dr. Dror (center) flanked by award
presenters from iCONGO, the
International Confederation of NGOs.
Professor Yuval Feldman (PhD, ’04, law and behavioral economics, University of
California–Berkeley), of the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research
fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, was awarded as PI, along with Francesca
Gino and Maryam Karochaki, a Non-Residential Grant from the Edmond J. Safra
Center for Ethics at Harvard University for 2013–2015 for research on “Expressive
Effects of Ethical Codes: An Experimental Survey of U.S. Employees’ Interpretation,
Understanding, and Implementation of Institutional Ethical Policies.”
Dr. Abu Rass displays her article published by UNESCO at its
3rd World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue.

12
Professor Emeritus Allon Gal (American Research Fellowship, ’84, American Jewish history,
Harvard University) has published: Gal, Allon. “Different Types of Zionism: The Inclusion of ‘the Other’
in Zionist Historiography in Israel.” Democratic Culture 16 (2015): 45–79. Professor Gal is affiliated
with the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is also a senior
fellow at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute and the founder and first director, now vice director, of
the university’s Center for North American Jewry.
Professor Ronny Geva (PhD, ’89, neuropsychology, City College of New York), of the Department
of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University and head of the university’s Developmental Neuropsychology
Lab at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, has published: Weisman, Omri, Ruth
Feldman, Merav Burg-Malki, Miri Keren, Ronny Geva, Gil Diesendruck, and Doron Gothelf.
“Mother-Child Interaction as a Window to a Unique Social Phenotype in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome and
in Williams Syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 3 (2015). doi: 10.1007/
s10803-015-2425-6. Professor Geva is also the PI on a 2014–2017 Infrastructure Grant from the
Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space for research on the social cognition of typical and atrisk
children.
Professor Dani Gimshi (Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, ’84, criminology, Columbia
University), who heads the Criminology Department at the College of Management
in Rishon LeZion, has recently published: Gimshi, Dani, and Vered Ne’eman-Haviv.
“Environmental Aspects of Violence in Educational Institutions and Their Influence on
Student Sense of Security.” Time for Education: A Journal of Thought and Studies in
Education 1, no. 1 (2015): 71–88. [In Hebrew].
Dr. Eliran Halali (Fulbright-ISEF postdoc, ’14, psychology, Stanford University) is an assistant
professor in the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University. In collaboration with his former
host on his Fulbright Fellowship at Stanford and Fulbright alumnus, Nir Halevy, he has published:
Halevy, Nir, and Eliran Halali. “Selfish Third Parties Act as Peacemakers by Transforming Conflicts
and Promoting Cooperation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 22 (2015):
6937–6942.
Dr. Elaine Hoter (Distinguished Teachers Award Program, ’09, English, Vanderbilt University)
has published: Walther, Joseph B., Elaine Hoter, Asmaa Ganayem, and Miri Shonfeld. “Computer-
Mediated Communication and the Reduction of Prejudice: A Controlled Longitudinal Field Experiment
among Jews and Arabs in Israel.” Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015): 550–558. Dr. Hoter is the
joint founder and joint director of the TEC Center—Center for Technology, Education and Cultural
Diversity at the Mofet Institute in Tel Aviv. She is also a senior lecturer at the Ohalo College of
Education in Katzrin and the Talpiot College of Education in Holon.
Dr. Arnon Keren (PhD, ’01, philosophy and economics, Columbia University), of the Department
of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, has been awarded, along with his fellow PI, Dr. Baruch
Eitam, a 1,500,000 NIS grant by Yad Hanadiv and the Council for Higher Education of Israel for the
creation of a new BA Honors Program in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Haifa for
2015–2020. His recent publications include: Keren, Arnon. “Trust and Belief: A Preemptive Reasons
Account.” Synthese 191 (2014): 2593–2615.
Professor Omer Moav (postdoc, ’99, economics, MIT), who teaches economics
at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya and the University of Warwick, has
won a 2011–2014 Israel Science Foundation grant of 269,000 NIS for his research,
“Environment and Transparency: The Rise of the State and Property Rights from
Ancient Egypt and Babylon to the 20th Century.” His recent publications include:
Gould, Eric D., and Omer Moav. “Does High Inequality Attract High Skilled Immigrants?”
The Economic Journal (2014). doi: 10.1111/ecoj.12185.
Dr. Eyal Pe’er (postdoc, ’11, psychology, Carnegie Mellon University), senior lecturer
and head of marketing at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Bar-
Ilan University, was awarded three research grants in July 2015: an Israel Science
Foundation (ISF) grant for research on how donations and prosocial behavior
are influenced by guilt; a German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and
Development (GIF) grant for the investigation of unethical behavior and the
phenomenon of partial confession; and a National Science Foundation–United
States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (NSF-BSF) grant for a collaborative
research project with Dr. Serge Engelman of the University of California–Berkeley, investigating
the use of behavioral economics lessons to improve users’ responsiveness to security messages.
Dr. Gil Ribak (PhD, ’07, Jewish American history, University of Wisconsin–Madison),
currently a Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Oberlin College (Ohio),
has recently published: Ribak, Gil. “Between Germany and Russia: Images of Poles and
the Ensuing Cultural Trajectories among Yiddish and Hebrew Writers between 1863 and
World War I.” Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies 28, (2015): 225–248.
Professor Emeritus Avraham Sela (researcher, ’87, Near Eastern studies, Princeton
University), the A. Ephraim and Shirley Diamond Family Professor of International
Relations and a senior research fellow at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, has published: Sela, Avraham. “From Revolution to Political
Participation: Institutionalization of Militant Islamic Movements.” Contemporary Review
of the Middle East 2, no. 1 (2015): 31–54. doi: 10.1177/2347798915584033.
Dr. Nitzan Shilon (JSD, ’05, law, Harvard University), assistant professor of law at the
Peking University School of Transnational Law, has published: Shilon, Nitzan. “CEO
Stock Ownership Policies—Rhetoric and Reality.” Indiana Law Journal 90, no. 1 (2015).

Dr. Noa Vaisman (PhD, ’01, anthropology, Cornell University), a research associate at the Palatine
Centre at the Durham University Law School, has won a 2014 British Arts and Humanities
Research Council Early Career Developmental Award, in the amount of £42,934, for her role as PI
on the project “Children of Political Violence: Imagining the Past and the Future from the Present.”
Dr. Vaisman is also an honorary research fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Durham
University.
EXACT AND LIFE SCIENCES
Dr. Hinanit Koltai (postdoc, ’98, biology/nematology, North Carolina State University)
is a research scientist (full professor grade) in the Department of Ornamental
Plants and Agricultural Biotechnology at the Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural
Research Organization (ARO)–Volcani Center in Bet-Dagan. She has published:
Mayzlish-Gati, Einav, Dana Laufer, Christopher F. Grivas, Julia Shaknof, Amiram
Sananes, Ariel Bier, Shani Ben-Harosh, Eduard Belausov, Michael D. Johnson, Emma
Artuso, Oshrat Levi, Ola Genin, Cristina Prandi, Isam Khalaila, Mark Pines, Ronit I.
Yarden, Yoram Kapulnik, and Hinanit Koltai. “Strigolactone Analogues Act as New Anti-
Cancer Agents in Inhibition of Breast Cancer in Xenograft Model.” Cancer Biology and
Therapy (2015): 1–7.
Dr. Ohad Afik (PhD, ’08, agriculture, University of Georgia) has published: Afik, Ohad, Keith S.
Delaplane, Sharoni Shafir, Humberto Moo-Valle, and J. Javier G. Quezada-Euan. “Nectar Minerals
as Regulators of Flower Visitation in Stingless Bees and Nectar Hoarding Wasps.” Journal of Chemical
Ecology 40, no. 5 (2014): 476–483.
Professor Elisha Bartov (researcher, ’86, ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University),
of the Ophthalmology Department at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv
University, and the Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Wolfson
Medical Center in Holon, has published: Achiron, Asaf, Elad Moisseiev, Mirit Glick,
Itamar Yeshurun, Elisha Bartov, and Zvia Burgansky. “Quantification of Metamorphopsia
Using the MacuFlow Test before and after Vitreoretinal Surgery.” Ophthalmic Res. 54, no.
2 (2015): 74–77.
Professor Guy Bloch (postdoc, ’97, zoology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), of
the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior and a member of the Center for the Study
of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has recently published: Eban-Rothschild,
Ada, and Guy Bloch. “The Colony Environment Modulates Sleep in Honey Bee Workers.” The Journal
of Experimental Biology 218 (2015): 404–411. doi: 10.1242/jeb.110619. Professor Bloch’s former
Fulbright postdoc adviser, Professor Gene E. Robinson, himself a Fulbright alumnus, was awarded
an honorary PhD from the Hebrew University in May. Professor Robinson is the director of the Carl
R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the Swanlund Chair of Entomology at the University
of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign.
14 15
Professor Ilan Chet (postdoc, ’68, microbiology, University of Wisconsin) was awarded
the insignia of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 2014 by Patrick Maisonnave, the
French ambassador to Israel, for his outstanding contribution to a French initiative aiming
to enable the connection between Europe and the Mediterranean countries on scientific
and academic projects. Chet was also elected a member of the Academia Europea in
2014. He serves as the deputy secretary general for higher education and research for the
secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Dr. Ronny Dahan (PhD, ’09, biology, Oregon Health & Science University), currently a postdoc
fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York, has published: Dahan, Ronny, Emanuela Sega,
John Engelhardt, Mark Selby, Alan J. Korman, and Jeffrey V. Ravetch. “FcγRs Modulate the Antitumor
Activity of Antibodies Targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 Axis.” Cancer Cell 28, no. 3 (2015): 285–
295. Dr. Dahan was also awarded an Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Cancer Research
Institute (NY).
Professor Abraham Nitzan (postdoc researcher, ’72, chemistry, MIT), of the School
of Chemistry at Tel Aviv University and the Department of Chemistry at the University
of Pennsylvania, was inducted into the American National Academy of Sciences in
April 2015 as a foreign associate.
Dr. Neta Zach (Fulbright-Schneider Yehuda Danon Post-Doctoral Fellowship, ’07,
neuroscience, Rockefeller University) is the chief scientific officer at Prize4Life, a
nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the discovery of treatments and a cure for ALS
(amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) using powerful incentives to attract new people
and drive innovation. Recently, Dr. Zach headed a project involving an international
competition to develop algorithmic solutions for predicting ALS progression that
attracted over 1,000 participants from 63 countries with diverse quantitative
expertise. Two winning algorithms were able to identify several novel predictors of
ALS progression, outperform prediction by several ALS clinicians, and reduce the
costs of a clinical trial by 20 percent through reducing the number of patients needed
to see an effect. The results of this project have been published: Küffner, Robert,
Neta Zach, Raquel Norel, Johann Hawe, David Schoenfeld, Liuxia Wang, Guang Li,
Lilly Fang, Lester Mackey, Orla Hardiman, Merit Cudkowicz, Alexander Sherman,
Gokhan Ertaylan, Moritz Grosse-Wentrup, Torsten Hothorn, Jules van Ligtenberg,
Jakob H. Macke, Timm Meyer, Bernhard Schölkopf, Linh Tran, Rubio Vaughan,
Gustavo Stolovitzky, and Melanie L. Leitner. “Crowdsourced Analysis of Clinical Trial
Data to Predict Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Progression.” Nature Biotechnology 33,
no. 1 (2015): 51–57.

HEALTH AND MEDICINE
Dr. Dan Douer (lecturer/researcher, ’79, medicine, UCLA), a hematologic oncologist and leader
of the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Program at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
in New York, has published: Douer, Dan, Ibrahim Aldoss, Matthew A. Lunning, Patrick W. Burke,
Laleh Ramezani, Lisa Mark, Janice Vrona, Jae H. Park, Martin S. Tallman, Vassilios L. Avramis,
Vinod Pullarkat, and Ann M. Mohrbacher. “Pharmacokinetics-Based Integration of Multiple Doses of
Intravenous Pegaspargase in a Pediatric Regimen for Adults with Newly Diagnosed Acute Lymphoblastic
Leukemia.” Journal of Clinical Oncology 32, no. 9 (2014): 905–911. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2013.50.2708.
Dr. Jacob Gindin (Camp David Fellowship, ’87, medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine),
director of the Center for Standards in Health and Disability in the Research Authority of Haifa
University and head of the Geriatric Services for the Assuta Medical Centers of Israel, has recently
published an original study: Szczerbinska, Katarzyna, Eva Topinková, Piotr Brzyski, Henriëtte G.
van der Roest, Tomás Richter, Harriet Finne-Soveri, Michael D. Denkinger, Jacob Gindin, Graziano
Onder, and Roberto Bernabei. “The Characteristics of Diabetic Residents in European Nursing Homes:
Results from the SHELTER Study.” The Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine 16, no. 4
(2015): 334–340.
ENGINEERING
16
Professor Emeritus Moshe Narkis (postdoc, ’68, chemical engineering, Princeton
University), of the faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion, was honored
with the 2015 Polymers for Advanced Technologies—Menachem Lewin Life Time
Achievement Award presented in Hangzhou, China, by the journal Polymers for
Advanced Technologies (PAT) and the global publishing company, John Wiley and
Sons Ltd.
17

FACETIME
18
Dr. Wael Abu-‘Uksa, a Postdoctoral fellow
at the Polonsky Academy for Advanced
Studies, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute,
and author of the forthcoming book, Freedom
in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies
in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge University Press), reflects on his
postdoc at Harvard University’s Center for
Middle Eastern Studies in 2012/13. He can
be contacted at: wael-a@gmx.com.
How did you get interested in the field of
Middle Eastern Studies?
When I was young, I had many questions
about social values and social conformity:
What is the source of cultural values? How
do they become important, sometimes even
sacred, to society? From this basis, I started
to think about the region, from which I
further extended my inquiry to the social and
political order.
In high school my major interests were
history, philosophy, and music. When I got
to the university, I applied for a double major
in European history and archaeology. What
especially attracted my interest were the
courses offered by the history department
that combined history with philosophy and
the study of ideas. I left the archaeology
department after one year, having realized
that the major part of this subject was field
work, and applied to Middle Eastern studies. I
combined the study of ideas with my interest
in the region, and this is basically what I’m
doing today—blending my study of ideas and
political philosophy with an interest in the
Middle East and linguistics.
How did you find your way to a Fulbright?
I did my first three degrees at the Hebrew
University. After my PhD, I felt it was time
to experience a new institution, a new
intellectual atmosphere with new people. My
preference was for an American university, so
Fulbright was the natural option to consider.
I also knew a few Fulbright alumni who
encouraged me to apply.
What were some highlights of your Fulbright
experience?
Two experiences: one was my work at
Harvard’s Widener Library, where each day
was like discovering new worlds and new
sources that were little known to historians.
This library is very rich in Arabic sources.
Without finding rare journals in Arabic from
the 1860s and 1870s, which we don’t have
here, I doubt that I could have written my
current book.
The second highlight was the birth of my
twins, Deema and Nasrat, which was a
different kind of experience. I remember that
my major lecture at the Center for Middle
Eastern Studies was the day after the twins’
birth. I barely spent a few hours with my
newborn babies before I had to run to the
“When I was young, I had many questions about social values and
social conformity: What is the source of cultural values? How do
they become important, sometimes even sacred, to society? From
this basis, I started to think about the region, from which I further
Dr. Wael Abu-‘Uksa
lecture. It was something hard to forget.
It was a new stage in my career and my
personal life.
What has been the impact of the Fulbright
experience on your life?
It was a new experience that I really needed.
It was very important for my writing and my
professional development because I didn’t
have any academic experience outside my
university before this.
Why did you write your forthcoming book,
Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and
Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth
Century?
It began when I read one of the classic books
in my field and felt that its methodology
was outdated. I felt that someone had to do
something because, of the published works in
the field of intellectual history in the Middle
East, a large part was based on the theoretical
approach that this work presented. My
postdoc was the opportunity to do that,
especially with the resources at the Widener
Library. I also felt that I had to make a hard
choice: either to publish my PhD, which most
people at my stage do, or to invest more
effort in research and to expand my inquiry
to new fields. Many friends advised me not
to start new research, especially because I
should publish a book as soon as possible to
have a chance for tenure. Eventually, I took
the risk and wrote a new book instead.
One of the major contributions of my book
is related to the methodological approach
of inquiring about ideas and addressing the
19
extended my inquiry to the social and political order.”

question of how to think about ideas, their
construction, and their development. Instead
of approaching ideas as historians living in
different periods who use their own, current
concepts to capture these ideas, I proposed
another way: looking at the language that
the people used in the nineteenth century
and trying to map the semantics of these
concepts, during periods of time, and from
these to learn about the history of ideas.
Establishing clear theoretical foundations
for the study of non-Western ideas was a
necessary requisite, especially in a field where
many experts use terms like “liberalism” to
depict almost all political streams that evolved
in the nineteenth century. Scholarship thus
created a variety of narratives that address
the same idea but that did not necessarily
have the same ideational content. I assumed
that conceptual analysis could provide more
accurate results, and that is actually what the
book shows.
Essentially, I wanted to see how, in the
formative period of modernity in the Arab
world, people came to think what they think
about ideas such as freedom, progress,
justice, and secularism. What did these
concepts mean then? I traced the semantics of
these words and their extreme politicization.
For example, freedom was not originally a
political word in Arabic—it simply meant the
opposite of being a slave. It was not used in
a political context until the beginning of the
nineteenth century.
20 21
My book addresses the following central
questions: When did the words that signified
the concept of freedom evolve from indicating
nonpolitical to political spheres? When did
the concept of freedom change to indicate a
consistent ideology?
Exactly what did the words that indicated
“freedom” mean in the altering contexts
of the nineteenth century? How did the
language of freedom influence and shape the
realm of political ideas? What political and
social ideas does “freedom” confront?
What do you hope to achieve with this book?
Besides the scientific contribution to
scholarship, I think this is the time to rethink
what we in the Middle East call the nahḍa
) period, which in Arabic means a نهضه)‏
cultural revival or renaissance. This is a
central concept Arabs in the Middle East
use to describe the historical context of the
modern revival of culture and thought in
Arabic. I wanted to reconsider this concept
and try to map its political orientations
throughout the nineteenth century. What
we have in the research in general equates
the nahḍa with the “liberal age.” In my book I
argue that it is much more complex. First, we
can’t use the term “liberal” in certain periods,
when neither the term nor the concept or
meaning existed in Arabic. Second, freedom
evolved in the Arab context in certain ways
that require a more accurate and careful
treatment.
Why did you hone in on the concept of
freedom?
These things begin from early personal
experiences. I grew up in a small village where
there was a strong sense of conformity. In my
youth, my questioning of social values was
part of getting in touch with my community
and with the larger society. Questions about
freedom, especially individual freedom, its
limits, and social conformity attracted my
interest in high school. It seems to me that if
I didn’t have an academic career, I would still
have pursued these questions, but probably
in a different way.
You have an upcoming article?
Yes, it will be on the concept of “civilization”
(tamaddun, ‏(تمَدُّن in Arabic, which was
extremely politicized and repeatedly reused
in the beginning of the nineteenth century.
I consider tamaddun (literally “being
civilized”) a key concept for understanding the
experience of modernity in Arabic because in
the beginning of the nineteenth century, this
term became comprehensive and depicted
“My book addresses the
following central questions:
When did the words that
signified the concept of
freedom evolve from indicating
nonpolitical to political spheres?
When did the concept of
freedom change to indicate a
consistent ideology?”
an intellectual camp that advocated the idea
of “progress.” It was employed to contest the
idea of “tradition.”
The structure and history of this concept
give us an internal look at the evolution,
formation, and challenges that modern
ideas faced in Arabic. In my book I reveal
the medieval philosophical origins of the
preoccupation with tamaddun and its
relation to the modern concept. People of
the nineteenth century used this concept in
the context of rediscovering the relevance of
these philosophical legacies in an attempt to
create their own social and political values,
which derived from their sense of a new
time. The history of the concept tamaddun
provides an innovative look at the approach
to history in the context of the Middle East.
Many contemporary historians approach the
question of modernity by preserving colonial
legacies that divided the world between East/
West, Islam/Modernity. Ironically, this legacy
exists in both orientalism and postcolonial
approaches. Conceptual history here offers
a relook at the dynamics of language and
suggests a more complex view, which I
consider more accurate. The importance
of looking critically at this formative period
seems to me crucial, especially in our time,
when the legacies of the Enlightenment in
the Arab world, which were constructed in
the nineteenth century, are collapsing.
In light of the current situation in the Arab
world, how do you see your work?
This is an important time to rethink the
emergence of modern ideologies in Arabic.
In that sense my book is a contribution to the
critical discourse on the evolution of these
ideologies. Despite the sense of actuality
that this book might leave, I think it should
remain a historical work, or as an argument
that is limited to issues that took place in the
past.
What’s on your horizon?
Another two books. I will publish my PhD,
which addresses the second half of the
twentieth century. I also have plans to
write another book about the first half of
the twentieth century. These, together with
my forthcoming book, which addresses the
nineteenth century, will form a series of three
books that explore the history of political and
religious ideas in the Middle East.

FROM THE LAB:
INNOVATIONS AND
DISCOVERIES
Professor Hossam Haick (postdoc, ’04, materials and interfaces, California Institute of Technology)
has developed a new technology for early stage stomach cancer diagnosis. Professor Haick’s
NaNose, nanotech “cancer sniffing” technology, was shown to be able to find elements indicating
the onset of cancer in the breath of patients, according to an article published in the April 2015
edition of the journal Gut. Professor Haick teaches at the Chemical Engineering Faculty and the
Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) at the Technion.
Professor Aaron Ciechanover (postdoc,'81, clinical biochemistry, MIT) and
researchers at his lab at the Technion’s David and Janet Polak Cancer and Vascular
Biology Research Center have discovered two proteins that dramatically inhibit tumor
development. Their groundbreaking study was published in the April 9, 2015, edition
of the journal Cell. Professor Ciechanover is a faculty member at the Technion’s
Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the president of the Israel Cancer Society. In
2004 he shared the Nobel Prize in biochemistry with Professor Avram Hershko and
Irwin Rose for the discovery of the ubiquitin system, which is responsible for the
degradation of defective proteins that can cause cell damage if not discharged. The
research currently being conducted in his lab builds upon this discovery.
22 23
A graphical abstract of Professor Ciechanover and
his team’s discovery.
Dr. Raoul Kopelman (PhD, ’57, chemistry, Columbia University) and his team at the
University of Michigan have developed a new nanoparticle that could be essential to
a targeted therapy for cardiac arrhythmia. The novel treatment, successfully trialed
on rodents and sheep, uses nanotechnology to precisely target and destroy the
cells within the heart that cause cardiac arrhythmia, while leaving the surrounding
cells unharmed. The research was published: Avula, Uma Mahesh R., Hyung Ki
Yoon, Chang H. Lee, Kuljeet Kaur, Rafael J. Ramirez, Yoshio Takemoto, Steven R.
Ennis, Fred Morady, Todd Herron, Omer Berenfeld, Raoul Kopelman, and Jérôme
Kalifa. “Cell-Selective Arrhythmia Ablation for Photomodulation of Heart Rhythm.”
Science Translation Medicine 7, no. 311 (2015). Dr. Kopelman is the Richard Smalley
Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Applied Physics at the
Uni¬versity of Michigan—Ann Arbor, where he also heads the Kopelman Laboratory
in the Chemistry Department. He is one of the first Israeli students to have received
a Fulbright grant to study in the US.

24
HUMPHREY FELLOWS
CORNER
Dr. Rachel Tal (Hubert H. Humphrey fellow,
’06, English and American literature, Boston
University)
I was a Hubert Humphrey fellow in 2006–
2007 at Boston University. My Humphrey
year was an incredible experience. It opened
my eyes to the endless possibilities for
making the world a better place. The people
I met, and the institutions I visited, have
renewed my determination to dedicate
my time to advancing co-existence and
multiculturalism.
Since my return to Israel, I have continued
to focus my efforts on promoting tolerance,
peace education, and cross-cultural
awareness, including the establishment of
a Jewish-Arab debating program for high
school students. In addition I led the
implementation of a unique
program to bring together
eleventh grade Jewish and Arab students to
learn the principles of the art of negotiation
and conflict resolution. The program is
carried out in English, in mixed groups, with
both Jewish and Arab coaches trained by
the Harvard Negotiation Project (HNP) at
the Program on Negotiation (PON). The
students learn and practice basic negotiation
skills in groups and pairs.
Inspired by the abundance of book clubs in
Boston, I have established book clubs for
Jewish and Arab students, in which groups
of students read and discuss American
literature. We have also set up a book club
for Amal’s English teachers from different
sectors, with schools and teachers taking
turns in hosting the meetings.
“My Humphrey year was an incredible experience. It opened my eyes to
the endless possibilities for making the world a better place. The people
I met, and the institutions I visited, have renewed my determination to
dedicate my time to advancing co-existence and multiculturalism.”
“Humphrey alumni in Israel contribute to our society in a variety of
unique ways—in education, science, medicine, social work, and more.
As a group we can positively impact Israel’s present and future.”
Our English department has expanded the
ACCESS Microscholarship Program, which
enables weak students to compete in higher
level matriculation exams in English, thus
opening the gates for an academic education.
This year marks our tenth year implementing
this program, which has revolutionized the
teaching of English in Israel’s most needy
sectors.
The networking connections made during
my Humphrey year have proved invaluable in
obtaining support for various projects, from
both the United States Embassy (Tel Aviv)
and private donors. The encouragement of
the American Embassy staff and their sincere
drive to improve the lives of students through
education provide not only sustainability for
many programs but also an ongoing catalyst
for undertaking new initiatives in education.
Humphrey alumni in Israel contribute to
our society in a variety of unique ways—in
education, science, medicine, social work,
and more. As a group we can positively
impact Israel’s present and future.
Dr. Tal is the head of English Studies at
the Amal Schools Network for Science,
Technology and Arts and currently serves
on the oversight committee of the Friends of
Fulbright Association. She can be reached at:
rachel_t@amalnet.k12.il.
25
Dr. Tal (third from right) with Amal English teachers at a
meeting of their book club.
Dr. Tal (far left), with some of her fellow Hubert H. Humphrey
program participants and coordinator.

ALUMNI IMPACT
MY WONDERFUL AND
MEANINGFUL FULBRIGHT–
MAXWELL SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
Ruth Schwartz-Hanoh earned her MA in
public administration at Syracuse University
in 2005. She can be contacted at:
ruthie_schwartz@hotmail.com.
This piece is dedicated to my previous boss,
Mr. Yigal Shahar, the former commissioner
of the Ministry of the Interior in Haifa, who
believed in me.
Ten years ago I had the privilege of studying
for a master’s degree in public administration
at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and
Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York.
This unique opportunity was made possible
by the collaboration between Fulbright, the
United States-Israel Educational Foundation,
the Maxwell School, and the State of Israel.
At the time, I was working for the Haifa
Regional Planning and Building Committee
in the Ministry of the Interior, and I had
just finished an MS in Urban and Regional
Planning at the Technion—Israel Institute of
Technology.
26 27
The Maxwell School’s Executive Master of
Public Administration program is an exclusive
program designed to enhance knowledge
and develop skills essential for careers
in public service. It prepares managers
for the challenges of heading dynamic
organizations in the public, nonprofit, and
civil society sectors. The
degree attracts officials and professionals
from around the globe, thus contributing to
an exciting and unique learning environment.
The Fulbright-Maxwell year provided me with
varied, interesting, and important experience
on various levels—academic,
professional, and personal. On the academic
and professional levels, for example, I received
a managerial tool kit designed to improve
my managerial skills. On the professional
and personal levels, I had the opportunity
to exchange views and professional
experience with a diverse group of midcareer
government and NGO professionals from all
over the world (including the US, Romania,
the Philippines, Peru, South Korea, Pakistan,
and China).
This experience as a whole had a profound
impact on my thoughts and views, both as a
person and as a professional. I came to better
understand the realm of public policy and its
influence on the lives of us all. During that
year I also developed a strong sense of public
duty and a desire to influence and make a
difference.
Upon my return to Israel, I continued working
for the Ministry of the Interior. In my last
position, as the deputy regional planner
“This experience as a whole had a profound impact on my thoughts
and views, both as a person and as a professional. I came to better
understand the realm of public policy and its influence on the lives
of us all. During that year I also developed a strong sense of public
duty and a desire to influence and make a difference.”
of the Jerusalem Planning and Building
Committee, I was in charge of the planning of
various regions and important infrastructure
projects. In 2012 I started working for Israel’s
largest and oldest environmental protection
NGO: the Society for the Protection of Nature
in Israel. There I headed the infrastructure
and energy department. I was also the
environment movement’s representative on
the Committee for National Infrastructure.
Today I head the “Harel” Local Planning
and Building Committee, which provides
services to the 40,000 residents of three
local authorities: Mevasseret Zion, Abu
Ghosh, and Kiryat Ye’arim. When I assumed
office, I declared a vision for the committee:
“a friendly and efficient service committee,
independent and professional, that will lead
the local authorities to an economically
sustainable future.” One of my main goals
is to dramatically improve the service we
provide—specifically, by easing the planning
and licensing processes, which are mired
in bureaucracy and consequently take a
great deal of time. This change is vital, first
because we, as a public system in charge of
planning and licensing, are in fact a monopoly
(for the residents of those three towns,
who are obliged by law to receive services
from us). And second, because the quality
and efficiency of the planning and licensing
processes influence the economic activity of
any local authority.
Apart from my paid work, for the past few
years I have been engaged in various public
activities. I am a board member of the city of
Givatayim’s Women’s Council, which aims
to make the city woman friendly. I have also
served as a board member of the Heschel
Sustainability Center, an organization
dedicated to building a sustainable future
for Israeli society. And during the past year I
have advised a committee headed by former
Maj. Gen. Yoav Segalovitz, as part of the Eli
Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society
2014, on the subject of legal corruption in
local planning committees.
“My vision for the future is to
continue to be active and influential
in the field of land use planning
and public policy and to continue
to strive for change for the better.
The spirit of proactive citizenship
and a passion for public service are
now deeply engrained in me.”
Today I am a member of a committee
established by the Ministry of the Interior to
investigate the boundary between Tel Aviv
and Bat Yam and to look into the possibility
of uniting the cities. The committee is dealing
with a complex and interesting matter that,
of course, could affect the lives of people in
both cities.
My vision for the future is to continue to be
active and influential in the field of land use
planning and public policy and to continue to
strive for change for the better. The spirit of
proactive citizenship and a passion for public
service are now deeply engrained in me.
Ruth Schwartz-Hanoh (left) stands alongside
two colleagues from Peru at their graduation.

SPOTLIGHT ON AN
AMERICAN FULBRIGHTER
Professor Naomi Chesler teaches at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, College of
Engineering. She is a Fulbright Senior Scholar
at the University of Tel Aviv, researching
“Novel Computational Models of the Lung
Vasculature and Airways Validated with
Experiments.” She can be contacted at:
Naomi.Chesler@wisc.edu.
When I was a young girl growing up in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, I loved to climb trees. One
sad day the city came and cut the lowest
branch of my favorite climbing tree because
it had become a hazard for cars in the street.
Late that evening, after several failed attempts
to fashion a ladder that would provide safe,
“Biomedical engineering has been a great career for me. I am able to
apply fundamental principles of physics and mathematics to improving
our understanding of clinical disease states and, hopefully, alter the
care and treatment of patients. I am also passionate about educating
the next generation of leaders in biomedical engineering. ”
28 29
Professor Naomi Chesler
easy access to the higher branches of the
tree, I realized I would enjoy and benefit from
technical training in mechanical engineering
and design. As I entered my teenage years, I
became fascinated with the human body and,
in part inspired by the Six Million Dollar Man
TV show, I decided to merge my interests in
engineering and medicine to pursue a degree
in biomedical engineering.
Biomedical engineering has been a great
career for me. I am able to apply fundamental
principles of physics and mathematics to
improving our understanding of clinical
disease states and, hopefully, alter the care
and treatment of patients. I am also passionate
about educating the next generation of
leaders in biomedical engineering.
My achievements in engineering and
mentoring have earned me awards from the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(fellow status), the American Institute of
Medical and Biological Engineering (fellow
status), the University of Wisconsin–
Madison (Vilas Distinguished Achievement
Professor, Harvey Spangler Award for
Technology-Enhanced Instruction, and
Polygon Teaching Excellence Award), the
Biomedical Engineering Society (Diversity
Award winner), and the Anita Borg Institute
for Women and Computing (Denice D.
Denton Emerging Leader Award).
The hoped-for clinical outcome of much of
my research program is improved treatment
for right-sided heart failure. Heart failure is
the most common cause of death in people
with cardiovascular disease. My research
group strives to better understand and
prevent heart failure by focusing on three
aspects of physiology and pathophysiology:
heart function, blood flow dynamics, and
changes in the large and small arteries that
alter blood flow dynamics and thus heart
function. Our recent publications have
answered questions related to sex differences
in disease development and progression
(Liu et al., Hypertension and American
Journal of Physiology; Golob et al., Journal
of Biomechanics), the utility of noninvasive
measures of hemodynamics (Soydan et al.,
Journal of Veterinary Cardiology; Schreier
et al., Journal of Applied Physiology), and
arterial mechanical changes with disease
progression (Tian et al., Journal of Mechanical
Behavior of Biomedical Materials; Bellofiore
et al., Journal of Biomechanical Engineering).
That said, it is not my research program alone
that has brought me to Israel supported by
a Fulbright Scholar award. I also want to
expand the horizons of my three daughters,
aged 11, 9, and 5.5, by exposing them to a
new culture and language, a complex and
historically fascinating part of the world, and
a potentially key part of their future Jewish
identities. My husband and I also wish to
experience these things. We are all thrilled to
be spending this year abroad in Israel, and we
look forward to traveling everywhere to see
all that Israel has to offer.
I chose to base my work at TAU because of
my longstanding friendship with Professors
David Elad and Shmuel Einav, both founders
of the Department of Biomedical Engineering
at TAU. My current project there seeks to
develop novel computational models of
the right side of the heart and pulmonary
vasculature, building on the expertise of David
Elad, and validate these models with the rich
experimental data collected by my research
group. In addition I hope to contribute to
his ongoing studies in reproductive and
respiratory engineering.
Since I will not be teaching this year, I hope
to visit the other major technical universities
in Israel to interact with other biomedical
engineering students and faculty. I’m looking
forward to an exciting year and would like to
express my sincere thanks to the Fulbright
Commission for supporting my stay. I’m sure
the experience will be life changing.

ONE FOR THE BOOKS
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Professor Raphael Cohen Almagor (postdoctoral Rabin fellow, ’99,
politics, UCLA) has published: Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. Confronting
the Internet’s Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free
Highway. New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press with Cambridge
University Press, 2015. The first book on social responsibility on the
Internet, this work aims to strike a balance between the free speech
principle and the responsibilities of the individual, corporation, state,
and the international community. Cohen-Almagor is also a participating
researcher in a 2013–2015 interdisciplinary Research Network grant
funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council on the
topic of “Crossing Over—New Narratives of Death.” Professor Cohen-
Almagor chairs the Politics Department and heads the Middle East
Study Group at the University of Hull (UK).
Professor Jacques Patrick Barber (PhD, ’89, clinical psychology,
University of Pennsylvania), dean and professor of psychology at
the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi
University, has published, along with Richard F. Summers: Summers,
Richard F., and Jacques Patrick Barber, eds. Practicing Psychodynamic
Therapy: A Casebook. New York: Guilford Press, 2015. Based on twelve
case studies, the book presents the psychodynamic therapy model
developed by Summers and Barber.
Dr. Liav Orgad (postdoctoral ISEF fellow, ’12, law, New York University)
is an assistant professor at IDC Radzyner School of Law, a Marie Curie
fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, and a faculty fellow at the Edmond
J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He has published:
Orgad, Liav. The Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority
Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. The first monograph to
examine the cultural rights of the majority and the policies that claim
to protect them, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of a key
issue in constitutional theory, national identity, and human rights.
Dr. Shakhar Rahav (PhD, ’98, East Asian studies, UC Berkeley),
lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Haifa, has published:
Rahav, Shakhar. The Rise of Political Intellectuals in Modern China: May
Fourth Societies and the Roots of Mass-Party Politics. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2015. The May Fourth Movement (1915–1923) is
widely considered a watershed in the history of modern China. This
book is the first in English to look at the movement, at this pivotal
time, in China’s most important hinterland city, Wuhan, and explains
its success in terms of social relations and social networks.
30 31
Dr. Hagar Kotef (PhD, ’04, political philosophy/philosophy of law,
UC Berkeley) has published: Kotef, Hagar. Movement and the Ordering
of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2015. Her book investigates the roles of mobility and
immobility in the history of political thought and the structuring of
political spaces. Ranging from the writings of Locke, Hobbes, and Mill
to the sophisticated technologies of control that circumscribe the lives
of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, it shows how concepts
of freedom, security, and violence take form and find justification via
different and differentiated regimes of movement. Dr. Kotef is a senior
lecturer in political theory and comparative politics at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Professor Arie Rimmerman (PhD, ’79, social work, Adelphi University/
Brandeis University) has published: Rimmerman, Arie. Family Policy
and Disability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. An
exploration of the status and scope of family policies related to
households of children with disabilities, the book provides an in-depth,
evidence-based review of legal, programmatic issues. It identifies and
continues the discussion regarding the critical role of family-centered
policies, as expressed in the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), as well as the future
of family policy toward families of children with disabilities in a time
of economic crisis. Rimmerman is the Richard Crossman Professor of
Social Welfare & Social Planning at the School of Social Work at the
University of Haifa.

Dr. Leah Shagrir (Distinguished Teachers Award Program, ’09,
education, Vanderbilt University), head of the School of Continuing
Education and Professional Development at the Levinsky College
of Education in Tel Aviv, has published: Shagrir, Leah. Journey to an
Ethnographic Research. Haifa: Pardes Publishing House, 2015. [In
Hebrew]. This unique book extends an invitation to readers to
participate in Shagrir’s four-month journey to the US on her Fulbright
program at Vanderbilt University. Exploring the nature and tools
of ethnographic research, the book presents a multidimensional
perspective that emerged from Shagrir’s various roles as a researcher:
teacher educator, faculty member, ethnographic researcher, and
student.
Dr. Liat Steir-Livny (doctoral dissertation
award, ’01, Jewish history, Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History, New York
Public Library) has published: Steir-Livny,
Liat. Let the Memorial Hill Remember: Holocaust
Representation in Israeli Popular Culture. Tel
Aviv: Resling, 2014. [In Hebrew]. Following
in the alternative, revolutionary path of
Holocaust remembrance that began taking
shape in the 1980s, this book focuses on
new representations of this cultural memory.
Through the analysis of films, literature,
journalism, theater, plastic art, and poetry
from the ’80s onward, the book presents
new aspects of representation: the politicization of the Holocaust, the melding of the Holocaust
and humor, and new perspectives on the Holocaust by Jewish artists of Asian and North African
descent. Dr. Steir-Livny is a senior lecturer in the Department of Culture, Creation, and Production,
Sapir Academic College, and serves as academic coordinator of the master’s degree program in
cultural studies at the Open University of Israel.
Dr. Mohammed Wattad (JSD, ’06, law,
Columbia University) is an assistant
professor at Zefat Academic College, School
of Law, and is currently a visiting associate
professor at the University of California–
Irvine for 2014–2016. He has published,
along with Amnon Carmi: Carmi, Amnon,
and Mohammed S. Wattad. Medical Law in
Israel. Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands:
Kluwer Law International, 2014. Dr. Wattad
is also the recipient of the 2015 AIS-Israel
Institute Young Scholar Award in Israel
Studies. The prize was presented by the
Association of Israel Studies and the Israel
Institute in recognition of Wattad’s exceptional contribution to Israel Studies in the field of law—
specifically, his research in the areas of criminal law, constitutional law, international criminal law,
international law, the laws of war, terrorism, torture, legal ethics, and medical law.
Professor Eyal Zamir (postdoctoral Ilan Ramon fellow, ’90, law, Harvard
University) has published: Zamir, Eyal. Law, Psychology, and Economics:
The Role of Loss Aversion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. The
book provides an overview of the psychological studies of loss aversion
to examine its effect on human behavior in contexts that are of particular
interest to the law, while discussing the impact of the law on people’s
behavior through the framing of the choices they encounter. Zamir has
also coedited: Zamir, Eyal, and Doron Teichman, eds. The Oxford Handbook
of Behavioral Economics and the Law. New York: Oxford University Press,
2014. Professor Doron Teichman (LLM, ’01, law, University of Michigan),
of the Hebrew University law school, is another Fulbright alumnus.
Professor Zamir is the Augusto Levi Professor of Commercial Law at
the Center for Empirical Studies of Decision
Making and the Law at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Faculty of Law.
32 33

FULBRIGHT AWARDS
GRANTS FOR ISRAELIS
FULBRIGHT POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
Sixteen grants are offered to postdoctoral scholars, in all fields of study, who are about to begin a
program of research in the United States. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT-ISEF POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP
The United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF) and ISEF Foundation plan to offer a joint
grant to a postdoctoral scholar with a proven record in community service activities who is about
to begin a program of research during the 2016/17 academic year at an accredited university or
non-profit research institute in the United States. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT MASTER’S DEGREE FELLOWSHIPS
FOREIGN LANGUAGE (ARABIC) TEACHING ASSISTANT
FELLOWSHIPS
Three grants are offered to teachers of English whose mother tongue is Arabic, in support of
participation in an academic-year program in which fellows teach Arabic and, in parallel, take
courses in US studies and/or English as a Second Language teaching methodology.
Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT OUTREACH LECTURING FUND
Hospitality grants are offered to US institutions that traditionally have been underrepresented in the
Fulbright Program (including minority-serving institutions, small liberal arts colleges, community
colleges, and institutions in underrepresented geographic locations) in order to enable them to
host lectures by visiting Fulbright scholars. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE (SIR) GRANTS
Grants are offered to US colleges and universities to enable them to host visiting Fulbright fellows
for one semester or one academic year of teaching and curriculum development activities.
Full Fellowship Announcement
Five grants will be awarded to outstanding students, in all fields except business administration,
arts, film, architecture, and clinical fields of study, who plan to begin master’s degree studies at
American universities. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT DISTINGUISHED AWARDS IN TEACHING
PROGRAM
34 35
FULBRIGHT OUTREACH FELLOWSHIPS
Five grants will be awarded to outstanding students, in all nonclinical fields of study, who plan to
begin master’s degree studies at American universities. This program is open to Israeli Arab and
Ethiopian students. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT INTERNATIONAL WRITING PROGRAM
FELLOWSHIP
One grant will be awarded to a writer, poet, playwright, or literary translator to participate in the
International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT HUBERT H. HUMPHREY FELLOWSHIPS
One grant is offered to midcareer professionals committed to public service, for a period of studies
and professional internship in the United States. Full Fellowship Announcement
This Program brings primary and secondary school teachers to the U.S. for a semester, from mid-
August 2016 to mid-December 2016. Teachers pursue individual inquiry projects, take courses for
professional development at a host university or institute, and observe and lead master classes
and seminars for teachers and students at the host University or local primary and secondary
schools. Full Fellowship Announcement
GRANTS FOR AMERICANS
FULBRIGHT SENIOR SCHOLAR FELLOWSHIPS
Eight grants are offered for lecturing/research/combined lecturing and research in all disciplines or
for artists/writers-in-residence. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
Eight fellowships are offered for postdoctoral research in all academic disciplines.
Full Fellowship Announcement

FULBRIGHT POST-GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS
Seven grants are offered to students in all disciplines for predoctoral study and research.
Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA REGIONAL
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
Three grants are offered to professionals who have a demonstrated record of research achievement
for research in any academic or professional field, to be carried out in more than one country of the
Middle East, North Africa, or South Asia. Full Fellowship Announcement
FULBRIGHT SPECIALIST FELLOWSHIPS
Ten grants are offered in support of short (two–six weeks), non-research visits by US scholars and
professionals in twenty selected fields. Full Fellowship Announcement
For further grant information or inquiries, please contact USIEF’s deputy director and Fulbright
Program officer, Ms. Judy Stavsky, at 03-517-2392, JStavsky@fulbright.org.il.
For information or inquiries about the Fulbright Outreach Fellowship, the Foreign Language (Arabic)
Teaching Assistant Fellowship, the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program and the
Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship, please contact the Fulbright Program coordinator, Ms. Sandy
Mattar, at 03-517-2131, ext. 204, Smattar@fulbright.org.il.
36 37
CONNECT WITH THE FULBRIGHT ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF
ISRAEL (FAAI):
Check out our new website: Fulbright Alumni Association of Israel
Join our Facebook group: Facebook Group
and our LinkedIn group: LinkedIn Group
Deborah Kaufman
Fulbright Alumni Program Coordinator
dkaufman@fulbright.org.il
03-517-2131, ext. 208

2015 AMERICAN FULBRIGHT
FELLOWS
SENIOR SCHOLARS POST-DOCTORAL SCHOLARS POST-GRADUATE FELLOWS
MIDDLE EAST AND
NORTH AFRICA REGIONAL
RESEARCH PROGRAM
FELLOW
Scott Bucking (R)
DePaul University
Archaeology
Ben-Gurion University
Darrell Britt
North Carolina State University
Mathematics
Tel Aviv University
Elisheva Bellin*
At Large
Psychology
Tel Aviv University
Nina Menkes
California Institute of the Arts
Film
Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design
Naomi Chesler (R)
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Biomedical Engineering
Tel Aviv University
Dennis Coleman Jett (L/R)
Pennsylvania State University
International Relations
Tel Aviv University
Amber Gum (L/R)
University of South Florida
Psychology
Bar-Ilan University
Alyssa Findlay
University of Delaware
Oceanography
Ben-Gurion University
Lonia Friedlander
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Geology
Ben-Gurion University
Kyle Knabb
University of California, San Diego
Anthropology
Ben-Gurion University
Joshua Cofsky
Yale University
Biology
University of Haifa
Joseph Getzoff
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Geography
Hebrew University
Luna Goldberg
Hampshire College
Visual Art/Museum Studies
Tel Aviv University
FULBRIGHT
DISTINGUISHED AWARD
IN TEACHING FELLOW
Margaret Stout
Antietam Elementary School (Virginia)
Special Education/Autism
38 39
Evan Morris (L/R)
Andrew Pilecki
Rachel Gur-Arie
Yale University
University of California, Santa Cruz
Arizona State University
Biomedical Engineering
Psychology
Public Health
Hebrew University
The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
Ben-Gurion University
Laurie Pearce (L/R)
University of California, Berkeley
Near Eastern Studies
Hebrew University
Richard Robinson (R)
Cornell University
Chemistry
Hebrew University
Marc Schlossberg (L/R)
University of Oregon
Urban Studies
Technion
Anne Staples (R)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
& State University
Engineering
Technion
Nathan Walton
University of Utah
Chemistry
Technion
Elizabeth Warburton
Western Michigan University
Ecology
Ben-Gurion University
David Wernick
University of California, Los Angeles
Biology
Weizmann Institute of Science
Richard Mapes*
University of Colorado, Boulder
Urban Development & Planning
Technion
Brandon Ng
University of Maryland, College Park
Chemistry
Tel Aviv University
Kayla Nonn
Claremont McKenna College
Cultural & Intellectual History
University of Haifa
Jeremy Pearson
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Cultural & Intellectual History
Ben-Gurion University
Benjamin Swartout
Lafayette College
Environmental Studies
Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
L – Lecturer
R - Researcher
L/R – Lecturer Researcher
*Betz Fellow

United States-Israel Educational Foundation
Office: 1 Ben Yehuda St., Tel Aviv, 6380101
Mail: P.O.B. 26160, Tel Aviv, 6126101
Phone: 03-517-2131
Visit our website: http://fulbright.org.il