Celebrating Women in STEM Program

Master of Ceremonies

Kelly Avidan, Director
Department of Resource Development,
Weizmann Institute of Science

10:00

Opening Remarks

Alon Chen, President-Elect, Weizmann Institute of Science
Gili Bisker, Zuckerman Faculty Scholar, Tel Aviv University
Eric Gertler, Trustee, Zuckerman Institute

10:15

Advancing STEM Now: Why? Who? How?

Marissa Gross Yarm, Head of International Affairs, Strategy and International Affairs Division, Israeli Council for Higher Education

Rahav Shalom Revivo, Manager, Fintech and Cyber Innovations at the Israel Ministry of Finance

Irit Idan, Executive Vice President of Research Development, RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems

Moderator: Lisa Lewin, Vice President, BNY Mellon’s Pershing NY

Q and A

11:00

“I Did it My Way”
Successful women in STEM speak about making meaningful scientific and technological discoveries.

Dina Ben-Yehuda, Dean, Hadassah – Hebrew University School of Medicine
> Professor Ben-Yehuda will speak about her lifelong commitment to cancer patients.

Yael Yaniv, Associate Professor, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
> Associate Professor Yaniv will speak about her latest efforts to develop new drug treatments.

11:40

How can we Inspire Learners to Strive for Excellence, Enable Innovation, and Create Impact?

Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA

11:50

Coffee Break

12:20

Shifting the Gender Balance in STEM – Who’s the Boss?
Zuckerman Faculty Scholars present their original research and reflect on women’s roles in STEM.

Dr. Gili Bisker, Tel Aviv University. Principal Investigator, Bisker Lab for Novel Nanomaterials for Probing Living Systems at the Nano-Scale

Dr. Limor Freifeld, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Principal Investigator, Neuro-Engineering Laboratory

Dr. Moran Shalev-Benami, Weizmann Institute of Science. Principal Investigator, Shalev-Benami Lab for Visualization of Macromolecular Complexes

Dr. Hadas Soifer, Tel Aviv University. Principal Investigator, Hadas Soifer Lab

Moderator: Dr. Danny Ben-Zvi, Zuckerman Faculty Scholar. Principal Investigator, Ben-Zvi Lab for Systems Physiology of Obesity and Diabetes

13:15

Novel Future Antibiotics

Ada Yonath, Director, Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure & Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2009

13:40

Closing Remarks

Yaffa Zilbershats, Chair, Planning and Budgeting Committee, Israeli Council for Higher Education

Lunch