The second Azrieli Graduate Studies Forum took place on Wednesday 14 January 2026 and saw a high level of engagement, with nearly all of the approximately 70 Graduate Studies and Visiting PhD Fellows in attendance.
The day began with an interactive TED-style puzzle, in which Fellows worked in small groups to match Fellows from previous cohorts with the titles of their TED-style talks. The exercise was lively and collaborative, setting an open and engaged tone for the day.
Eight Fellows then presented their research, covering a broad disciplinary range that included biology, art history, quantum computing, psychology, cancer research, linguistics, chemistry, and sociology. The conversations that followed were notably cross-disciplinary. Physicists posed questions to sociologists, while historians engaged with computer scientists, highlighting the Fellows’ interest in work beyond their own fields.
This forum also marked the first participation of the Visiting PhD Fellows in the forum series. These are doctoral students enrolled at universities abroad who spend three to four months at Israeli host institutions, gaining exposure to academic life and research in Israel while strengthening connections between Israeli and global academia.
Fellows came together for a shared lunch, which offered time to step away from the formal program and mingle across cohorts and disciplines. The afternoon then shifted to a hands-on collage activity. Colourful and tactile, the session created space for reflection on the doctoral journey and encouraged informal discussion in a relaxed setting.
As the second forum in the annual series, the event continued to build community while reinforcing the value of curiosity, exchange, and cross-disciplinary engagement.
