The Azrieli Fellows Program is delighted to share the latest accomplishments of its Fellows across the Graduate Studies, International Postdoctoral, and Early Career Faculty tracks. These achievements—including faculty appointments, prestigious postdoctoral positions, academic awards, and major research grants—highlight the exceptional calibre of our Fellows and their growing impact within academia and beyond. We congratulate them warmly and wish them continued success in their professional journeys.
New Faculty Appointments
David Amar (2013–2014 Graduate Studies Fellow) has been appointed as a senior lecturer at the Blavatnik School of Computer Science & AI and the Department of Human Genetics and Biochemistry at Tel Aviv University.
Rona Aviram (2016–2017 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as an assistant professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the Department of Communication Studies.
Yinon Bar-On (2018–2019 Graduate Studies Fellow) was appointed to a tenure-track position at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Shraga Bick (2019-2020 Graduate Studies Fellow) was appointed to a tenure-track position at the Department of Comparative Religion at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Itay Bloch (2019–2020 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as a senior lecturer in theoretical particle physics at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Hagai Diamandi (2018–2019 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as an assistant professor at the Applied Physics Institute at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yuval Givon (2017–2018 Graduate Studies Fellow) was appointed to a tenure-track position in the Department of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Itay Griniasty (2016–2017 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University at the School of Mechanical Engineering.
Yann Gouttenoire (2021–2022 International Postdoctoral Fellow) was recruited as a research officer at the CNRS Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, France.
Danfei Hu (2023–2024 International Postdoctoral Fellow) received a position as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of York.
Alon Jasper (2021–2022 Graduate Studies Fellow) was appointed to a tenure-track position as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University.
Ido Levin (2016–2017 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), a joint position in chemistry and mathematics.
Mingzi Niu (2024–2025 International Postdoctoral Fellow) received a position as assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Hagit Sabato (2014–2015 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position as a lecturer at the Seymour Fox School of Education at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Pengfei Wang (2023–2024 International Postdoctoral Fellow) received a position as an assistant professor at Nanjing University in the School of Robotics and Automation.
Karen Yirmiya (2017–2018 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a position at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology.
Promotions
Yonatan Belinkov (2020–2021 Early Career Faculty Fellow) was promoted to associate professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Taub Faculty of Computer Science.
Karma Ben Johanan (2022–2023 Early Career Faculty Fellow) was tenured and promoted to associate professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Raja Giryes (2010–20211 Graduate Studies Fellow) was promoted to full professor at Tel Aviv University in the School of Electrical Engineering.
Meital Oren-Suissa (2017–2018 Early Career Faculty Fellow) was promoted to associate professor with tenure at the Weizmann Institute of Science in the Department of Brain Sciences.
Shira Soffer-Vital (2008–2009 Graduate Studies Fellow) was promoted to senior lecturer in the Departments of Education and Society and Business Administration at Ono Academic College.
Giddon Ticotsky (2021–2022 Early Career Faculty Fellow) was appointed head of the Department of Hebrew Literature at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Postdoctoral Positions
Michal Andelman Gur (2021–2022 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded the Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Ezra Ben Abu (2023–2024 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded the Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship and will pursue a postdoctoral position in Prof. Hod Lipson’s lab at Columbia University, where he will investigate autonomous robotic fabrication and construction directly from local materials.
Shlomit Davidovitch (2007–2008 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Business School of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Noa Feldman (2020–2021 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at Freie Universität Berlin at the Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Shir Genzer (2022–2023 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded an ICAMH Fellowship (Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health).
Einav Gozansky (2022–2023 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and will conduct her postdoctoral research at the Institute for Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany, under the supervision of Dr. Jan Mehnert.
Or Hadas (2022–2023 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University, as well as a Rothschild Fellowship.
Zohar Klein (2020–2021 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded an ISF postdoctoral fellowship at University College London in the Affective Brain Lab
Ron Kleiner (2021–2022 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University.
Guy Kornowski (2023–2024 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, affiliated with the School of Mathematics.
Alla Marchenko (2022–2023 International Postdoctoral Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Joshua Ricouvier (2019–2020 International Postdoctoral Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral position in France at INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment).
Ariel Tennenhouse (2023–2024 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a postdoctoral position at ETH Zurich.
Positions in Industry
Haddar Beiser (2018–2019 Graduate Studies Fellow) was appointed as a software engineer at Istra Research.
Yehuda Brody (2008–2009 Graduate Studies Fellow) joined the R&D Medical Translational team at OncoHost.
Remi Casier (2022–2023 International Postdoctoral Fellow) was appointed as a product innovation lead at Treeless AG, an ETH spinoff.
Michael Danziger (2015–2016 Graduate Studies Fellow) became team lead for AI in computational biology at IBM Research.
Alon Inbar (2023–2024 Graduate Studies Fellow) joined Quantum Machines, a quantum computing startup.
Yuval Rubinstein Museri (2016-2017 Graduate Studies Fellow) founded a consulting company specializing in urban planning and smart infrastructure.
Major Grants
Michal Andelman Gur (2021–2022 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded a Rappaport Prize at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Gil Cohen (2018–2019 Early Career Faculty Fellow) received an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project “Pushing Boundaries in BPL Derandomization.”
Shahar Dery (2018–2019 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded the Alon Fellowship at Bar Ilan University’s Department of Chemistry
Taelin Karidi (2021–2022 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded the the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Postdoctoral Award for Women in Mathematical and Computing Sciences and a Hebrew University Excellence Scholarship
Ido Kaminer (2017–2018 Early Career Faculty Fellow), an associate professor of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Science, was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his work in electron microscopy.
Ori Katz (2015–2016 Early Career Faculty Fellow) received an ERC Consolidator Grant for “Fluctuations-driven Light and Acoustic Scattering Mitigation for High-resolution Imaging in Dynamic Environments” as well as an ISF–DFG grant.
Leeat Keren (2020–2021 Early Career Faculty Fellow) of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science was awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.
Deborah Marciano (2015–2016 Graduate Studies Fellow) received an ISF grant and a grant from the International Center for Responsible Gaming.
Benjamin Palmer (2019–2020 Early Career Faculty Fellow) received an ERC Consolidator Grant for “Exploring Microalgae as Cellular Factories for Molecular Crystals.”
Yonat Rum (2015–2016 Graduate Studies Fellow), a lecturer at the Seymour Fox School of Education at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, received an ISF Individual Research Grant and an ISF New-Faculty Equipment Grant.
Tom Shaked (2018–2019 Graduate Studies Fellow) received grants from the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology and from Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (KKL) for his work on robotics.
Irene Unterman (2022–2023 Graduate Studies Fellow) received a research grant from the Jerusalem Development Authority to support her project on immunotherapy and the dynamics of skin lesions during treatment as part of her work conducted through the Hadassah Nativ research program.
Academic Awards
Shany Danieli (2024–2025 Early Career Faculty Fellow) of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University was named Rector’s Outstanding Lecturer at her university for the 2024–2025 academic year.
Leeat Keren (2020–2021 Early Career Faculty Fellow) of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science was named an EMBO Young Investigator.
Daniel Kirschenbaum (2021–2022 International Postdoctoral Fellow) a physician-scientist and neuropathologist at University Hospital Zurich and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), received the 2026 EACR–Mark Foundation–Pezcoller Foundation Rising Star Award in recognition of his research on the dynamic behaviour of immune cells in brain tumours.
Ophir Netzer (2024–2025 Graduate Studies Fellow) of the University of Haifa received the President of Israel’s Scholarship for Outstanding PhD Students and the President of Israel Scholarship for Excellence and Scientific Innovation for her work on cognitive, emotional, physiological, and neural responses to extreme trauma under the influence of psychoactive substances.
Anna Uzonyi (2022–2023 Graduate Studies Fellow) was awarded the Dimitris N. Chofras Prize.
Moran Yassour (2018–2019 Early Career Faculty Fellow) was named an EMBO Young Investigator in recognition of her research on the developing infant microbiome and its impact on pediatric health.
