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Academic First Responders

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

How TAU sparked a learning revolution in the wake of COVID-19.

By Idit Nirel

When COVID-19 broke in Israel in mid-March and the country shut down, Tel Aviv University (TAU) decided to continue teaching all courses online—almost overnight.

While many professors and students struggled to adapt, Prof. Guy Mundlak was ready.  

​Prof. Guy Mundlak

​Prof. Guy Mundlak. Photo: Yoram Reshef.

Mundlak, who teaches both at the Buchmann Faculty of Law and the Department of Labor Studies of the Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, made the change to online teaching 4 years ago. One of his courses, “Labor Law,” is a hybrid course; students study theoretical materials on their own through online videos of lectures, and the in-person sessions are dedicated to discussions and analyzing the latest case studies. Mundlak’s motivation to go digital preceded COVID-19 and stemmed from a different reason:

“Teaching this course for over 20 years, I couldn’t reinvent the wheel and find new ways to teach the same material every time,” he says. Making the course digital refreshed it.

Mundlak sees online learning not as a constraint, but as an opportunity: “The format allows students to learn the general concepts at their own pace, and I can focus my classroom lessons on what interests us here and now, without worrying if I’ve covered all of the material in time for the exam,” he explains. “This approach leaves me more room for spontaneity, for dealing with matters of the hour, and for diving deep into topics with the students. As a result, I don’t just lecture to my students; I engage and involve them in issues that touch their everyday lives—which is the best way to learn.”

With the pandemic and lockdown crushing the economy, Mundlak’s course became especially relevant to his students in the spring of 2020. He dedicated his classes—taught via Zoom—to employment issues that emerged during the Corona pandemic, such as the ramifications of layoffs and furloughs. Because most of his students had been working as waiters or in other hourly jobs to finance their studies, these subjects were not just academic theory, but reality, for many of them.

Coronavirus Pushes Learning Online

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Dr. Tal Soffer. Photo: Yoram Reshef.

Providing Prof. Mundlak with digital tools for online teaching was Dr. Tal Soffer, Director of Virtual TAU, the unit responsible for enhancing the University’s digital teaching capacity and resources.  According to her, “online courses or integrating digital methods into other courses allow for learning that is customized to students’ needs.” At the same time, “online learning can provide students with skills for lifelong learning, which are crucial for success in today’s labor market—such as time management and the ability to learn independently.”

As Coronavirus spread in Israel and lockdown appeared imminent, Soffer and her team were already working around the clock to facilitate the shift to online studies. It was a success. More than 90,000 live online lessons took place over the spring semester, in addition to thousands of lessons recorded for independent study. All in all, online learning during the lockdown accounted for more than 50,000 hours and 10 Terabits in digital volume.

 

TAU student Michal Ferenz. Photo: Yoram Reshef.

Soffer and her team set up a technical support hotline for online learning; they received as many as 700 calls per day. In addition to assisting professors in overcoming the technicalities of online teaching, the team also created more than 50 video guides showing lecturers how to use online learning tools to make lessons more engaging.

The team also conducted large-scale surveys among 7,000 students and 750 faculty members. They found that a vast majority of students wanted to incorporate online learning into their studies in the future.

Like other universities around the world, TAU also faced the new challenge of conducting online exams and evaluations. Spring semester exams were conducted from home with supervisors overseeing students through Zoom.

During the 2020-2021 academic year, TAU is introducing a pilot computerized authentication system for online exams. The new technology will secure online exams by verifying students’ identity and monitoring their presence and activities during the exam. Although this is a big step forward, Soffer is aware that in the long run adopting more of these technologies may be intrusive. Instead of relying on anti-cheating applications, Soffer says, the University should also encourage alternative evaluation methods, such as essays and group projects.

“The Corona crisis profoundly disrupted higher education and forced it to make the transition to the digital world—and, in a way, I believe this is exactly the kind of disruption that was needed. The question is, how do we move forward from here?” Soffer says.

Innovating on all Levels

“Universities all around the world understood a long time ago that they have to transform learning and to enhance their online and digital tools,” says Yuval Shreibman, Director of TAU Online – Innovative Learning Center.  The Center started producing online courses long before Corona to make academia more accessible through technology.

“COVID-19 caused us to leap forward and address problems that we could previously overlook. At the same time, it shows us that we need to make complementary classroom learning more active and engaging.”

Given the volatile reality and constantly changing regulations, TAU prepared for all possible scenarios for the new academic year. While it intended to offer first-year students the option to physically attend classes, studies were conducted online for the duration of the first semester. In response, Virtual TAU has launched an unprecedented effort to arm lecturers with versatile presentation tools and introduce additional courses that are fully online.


Virtual TAU Team. Photo: Yoram Reshef.

Admissions to the University are also going online, with a new admissions track based on participation and success in specific online courses chosen by each faculty. The new track is currently intended for candidates who, because of COVID-19, could not take standardized university admissions tests. Yet, it also provides greater access to the University for young Israelis from disadvantaged backgrounds or outlying communities, who otherwise might not be able to study at TAU.

In the fall of 2021, TAU plans to launch a new fully online international MBA program, the first of its kind to be offered by an Israeli university. It will combine video courses that students will watch independently, with personal guidance from teaching staff, online study forums and projects. Based on the same high entrance requirements as the regular MBA programs at TAU’s Coller School of Management—recently ranked as the 13th school in the world for producing VC-backed entrepreneurs—the program is expected to attract ambitious students from across the globe.

COVID-19 underlined the importance of online learning at TAU so much that President Ariel Porat created a new position to oversee educational innovation; Prof. Liat Kishon-Rabin became Dean of Innovation in Learning and Teaching in July. “TAU has always prided itself as a leader in educational innovation, but the Corona pandemic has highlighted the need to focus on this field even more,” says Prof. Porat. “I trust that Prof. Kishon-Rabin will build on our existing achievements and lead us through the post-Corona era with vision and success.”

Read about Minducate, an innovation and learning center at TAU. 

Providing Critical Support during Online Learning

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Alberto Meschiany. Photo: Moshe Bedarshi.

Despite the positive insights gleaned about online learning, TAU must take into account students who struggled with remote learning as it prepares for a new academic year in the shadow of COVID-19. Alberto Meschiany, Head of the Psychological Services Unit at TAU’s Student Services Division, says that at the beginning of the crisis, his unit experienced a 15% rise in requests for psychological support.

“For many students, the anxiety resulting from the pandemic itself and its economic implications was coupled with the stress of having to study and take exams from home,” he says. “For students who live in the dorms or come from lower socio-economic levels this was exceptionally difficult. Many of them don’t have a quiet place to study. Some live in remote towns that don’t have the Internet network to support continuous online studies.”

Yet, according to Meschiany, it isn’t only the logistical and technological barriers that made the shift to online learning difficult for many TAU students. “Distance from other students can create feelings of alienation and loneliness. All the technology in the world cannot replace the support that students get from their peers,” he says. “In addition, the lack of a personal lecturer-student relationship has a negative effect on academic development. The ability to knock on a lecturer’s door and ask a question or discuss a topic spontaneously is lost with online learning.”

Meschiany believes that as the University adopts more online learning methods, it should make an effort to tailor them to accommodate students with various difficulties. “They will need our active help,” he says.

The Student Viewpoint

Looking back at lessons learned from the “first wave” of online learning, there is no question that TAU can learn the most from its students. Jonathan Berkheim, a master’s student in chemistry and spokesperson for TAU’s Student Union when the pandemic started, experienced the lockdown and its aftermath from several perspectives.

As a senior member of the Student Union, he fielded numerous calls from students who struggled to study within the new framework. Even students who fared well felt shortchanged, according to Berkheim. “The social interaction, class discussions and campus life are crucial parts of the package that students expect from university studies.” 

Jonathan Berkheim. Photo: Moshe Bedarshi.

At the same time, Berkheim says that the unusual circumstances broke traditional, hierarchical barriers between students and professors. They found themselves communicating directly on WhatsApp groups, saw each other’s homes during Zoom sessions, and shared similar experiences of life during the lockdown. “I hope that the University will embrace this new paradigm for student-professor relations in the future.”

​In addition, as a teaching assistant, he experienced distance learning from the other side of the virtual podium: “Something gets lost in translation. Students get distracted more easily. It was hard for me to know if they really understood what I was teaching.”

Finally, as a student himself, he found that watching recorded lessons at his own pace was convenient. “Face-to-face learning in the classroom is crucial, but combining it with independent online studies will have great benefits for students,” Berkheim concludes.

Among TAU students studying remotely are also hundreds of international students from over 100 countries, who are enrolled in over 60 English-led academic programs offered by TAU International. In the midst of the crisis, TAU International launched an online summer course, titled: “COVID-19: From Crisis to Opportunity,” which attracted more than 80 participants from Asia, South America, North America and Europe.

Read about how TAU Impact, the University’s flagship community service program, adapted to the pandemic.
 

As TAU heads toward another academic year, it is clear that life with COVID-19 has become the new normal. All players involved in online learning understand that TAU must embrace the advantages moving forward.

“Until recently, when I was presenting my own field of research—which deals with future trends in the labor market and predicts that people would increasingly shift to working from home—people would tell me that it sounds too futuristic,” says Prof. Mundlak. “Now it is has become a reality. The future is here.”

Featured image: TAU Life Sciences Prof. Nir Ohad films a remote lecture at the TAU Online studio. Photo: Yoram Reshef.

Social Work Student Sees Light in Unexpected Places

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

For Glaser Scholar Lea Tamanyo, making positive change starts with helping individuals.

By Melanie Takefman

TAU graduate student Lea Tamanyo isn’t afraid of challenges; she’s had to overcome many herself, both in her personal life and academic career.

For example, as an undergraduate student in social work, she chose to gain practical experience in one of the most difficult and complex subfields at the outset—mental health. “This area is considered hard-core in social work, but when I first started I wanted to explore different fields so I took the plunge.”  

As she enters her second year of a master’s degree at TAU’s Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tamanyo realizes that this field, despite its complexities, is her calling in life.

Even before becoming a social worker, Tamanyo, a recipient of the Herbert and Sharon Glaser Foundation scholarship, worked at an assisted living facility for men who suffer from mental illnesses. Many of them have had particularly difficult lives. At first, it wasn’t easy, she says, but slowly she became absorbed in their lives. She developed an especially strong relationship with three of her clients. “I quickly understood that their diseases don’t define them. They have so much more to them than that.

“I was drawn by the fact that I could be the one to make a positive change, that I could help them lead their best lives. I felt like I had reached the right place,” she says, the emotion patent in her voice. “The work fulfills me and gratifies me immensely.”

Now, armed with an undergraduate degree in social work, she works part-time at the same facility, alongside pursuing graduate studies at TAU.

Tamanyo’s interest in social work was sparked during her post-high school national service at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel. “The way all the different professionals interacted to help the children captivated me,” she says. She chose social work because she likes the idea of “helping people help themselves.”

Tamanyo herself, the seventh of eight children, is no stranger to adversity. Her parents immigrated to Israel in 1991 from Ethiopia and were sent to live in a caravan compound in northern Israel. Lea says that it was difficult for them to learn Hebrew, acclimate to the Israeli mentality, and earn a living. Her father is fully disabled, and her mother works as a caretaker for the elderly, the only job she could get without an education.

“My siblings and I studied by the skin of our teeth,” said Lea. “Our parents couldn’t help us with schoolwork, and there was no money for private tutors or extra-curricular courses. I learned how to be self-reliant and teach myself.”

Despite her parents’ modest means, they instilled in their children a strong sense of purpose, perseverance, and the value of education. “They want us to succeed professionally, so that we will have what they didn’t.”

Lea says her parents encountered a lot of ignorance, on the part of veteran Israelis, about their culture. “Sometimes, it’s simply a lack of awareness, not something intentional, because when you’re not familiar with something, it can appear strange… At the end of the day, we are all immigrants, and we have to accept the other. Everyone brings with them a different color.”

Although Lea herself hasn’t encountered the difficulties her parents did, it’s clear that their experiences have shaped her identity and professional path. Seeing the best in every person, beyond their background or social identity, is something that guides her.

Herbert and Sharon Glaser

Doron Kochavi and Tammy Glaser Kochavi

“Lea is a very talented, ambitious and forward-looking young woman, who is committed to contributing to the country through her professional skills,” says Doron Kochavi, a TAU Governor, who, with his wife, fellow TAU Governor Tammy Glaser Kochavi, selected Lea as one of the recipients of the Herbert and Sharon Glaser Foundation Scholarship. 

​​“We believe that the way to create positive change in this country is to support individuals, like Lea, who want to strengthen the melting pot in which we live. In this respect, social workers play a vital role because they help the weakest members of society overcome challenges and realize their potential.”

“I am grateful to the Herbert and Sharon Glaser Foundation, and the Kochavi family for my scholarship because it frees me from financial worries and allows me to focus on my studies,” says Tamanyo. “Especially now in the era of Corona, when there is less work, it is truly a blessing.”

featured image: Glaser Scholar Lea Tamanyo. Photo: Moshe Bedarshi. 

Accelerating Jewish-Arab Entrepreneurship

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

TAU’s jumpTAU program helps bicultural teams found start-ups and friendships.

By Lindsey Zemler

“If you put a law student, a medical student, a social sciences student and an engineer in a room—it’s not the start of a joke. It’s the start of a creative idea,” says Yair Sakov, Managing Director of TAU’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center and its accelerator program, jumpTAU. 

The four-month program provides a framework for teams of TAU students and recent alumni to develop a business or social venture. In 2020, the Center, which promotes the integration of diverse communities into Israel’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, focused on bringing together Arab and Jewish students. 

Although Arab society constitutes more than 20% of Israel’s population, relations between Arab citizens and the Jewish majority are often characterized by ignorance, prejudice and fear. The same is true on Israeli campuses: “Connections between Jews and Arabs are happening in the workplace,” Sakov says, “but in academia we don’t see it enough.”

According to jumpTAU participant Lena Polevoi, a Jewish biomedical engineering student, having Jews and Arabs working together gave her team unique insights into developing a product. She acted as CEO of a student group developing a digital platform called Chatty, which aims to reduce loneliness among the elderly. “We discovered that loneliness is less prevalent among Arab seniors because they generally live with their families, while Jewish seniors do not,” she says.

 

Lena Polevoi. Photo: Yael Tzur.

Polevoi adds that she entered the program ready to learn as much as possible before graduating, especially in the field of digital marketing.

Similarly, Arab-Israeli Osaid Watted, a second-year mechanical engineering student, applied to jumpTAU to cultivate his entrepreneurial skills. He also wished to forge connections to the Jewish business world. Watted was part of the team that launched Game On, an online social platform for amateur athletes to find sports games to compete in. The team members’ different fields of study enhanced the business development process, he says.

The jumpTAU novice entrepreneurs received guidance from industry veterans and executives with decades of experience. All of the program’s volunteer mentors are TAU alumni. Most important, the mentors provided an entry point into the business world, which was a major advantage, especially for the Arab students; finding a job, for example, says Watted, would otherwise be very difficult for him, who has no experience or contacts in Israel’s business community.

Osaid Watted. Photo: Yael Tzur.

Osaid Watted. Photo: Yael Tzur.

​In addition to networking opportunities, the program, funded by the U.S. Embassy and USAID’s Conflict Mitigation and Management (CMM) Program, provided additional benefits to participants, says Sakov. 

Jewish students gained a rare window into the Arab market through their Arab peers, a huge market opportunity locally and globally, he says.

Polevoi emerged from the program with new knowledge and skills and a refined direction in life. The experience led her to take a job in a solar energy venture upon graduation from TAU. She also became good friends with her Arab teammate and says that participation in the accelerator was an opportunity to get to know a new culture first-hand. 

For Watted, the experience provided enormous personal and professional benefits; “the entrepreneurial sense in me just grew, and I became more confident in my abilities, like how to actually build a start-up—it’s just priceless.” He now plans to start his own company, based on the values he was raised on: to provide an egalitarian and empowering work environment for disadvantaged groups within the Arab community, including Arab women. 

“Respecting each other and working with each other creates a feeling of tolerance,” said Watted. 

By the program’s end, two out of eight teams had raised investment funding for their start-ups to continue beyond the accelerator. Yet, to Sakov, securing funding is but “the icing on the cake.” 

“Professional collaboration is where humanity begins,” concludes Sakov. “When you work with someone, you trust them. All of a sudden, the label that says Jewish or Arab disappears, and you see the person behind it.”

featured image: jumpTAU students. Photo: Yael Tzur.

2020 Kadar Ceremony Celebrates Pioneering Spirit and Hard Work

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In its sixth year, the Kadar Family Award continues to nurture research and excellence in teaching at TAU.

Four outstanding junior and senior TAU faculty members on campus were presented with the 2020 Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research at a special online event as part of the 2020 Board of Governors meeting. The winners, Prof. Tal Ellenbogen (Engineering), Prof. Ilit Ferber (Humanities), Prof. Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Humanities) and Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro (Medicine), were selected from multiple candidates who went through a rigorous review process.

Nadav Kadar, TAU alumnus, recently elected member of the TAU Board of Governors and co-founder of the Naomi Foundation, delivered remarks at the virtual event. Also present were Prof. Yoav Henis, outgoing VP for Research and Development and Chairman of the award committee; TAU President Prof. Ariel Porat; and outgoing TAU Rector Prof. Yaron Oz.

“My family joins me in congratulating the 2020 recipients of the award. Thank you for your magnificent contributions in your respective fields,” said Nadav Kadar on behalf of the Kadar family during the ceremony. “Our award honors outstanding research and scholarship in the sciences and the humanities and celebrates the pioneering spirit and hard work necessary to change the world. My mother, Naomi Prawer Kadar, taught Yiddish at schools and institutions of higher learning around the world including the International Yiddish Summer Program at TAU. We are proud to support Tel Aviv University as a hub of innovation.”

Prof. Henis, chair of the event, gave special thanks to the Kadar family for supporting the award for the sixth year in a row. “We truly hope that this important tradition will continue.”

“The Kadar Award has become the most prestigious research award at TAU,” said President Porat at the ceremony. “In order to become prestigious, an award must meet two conditions: candidates must be high quality, and the selection committee members must be distinguished scholars who are able to make judgments outside their field. The committee has done a wonderful job year after year.”

The Kadar Family Award is funded by the Naomi Foundation, which honors the memory of Naomi Prawer Kadar PhD, a lifelong educator and the late wife of physician, educator and innovator Dr. Avraham Kadar, a TAU graduate and benefactor. Naomi and Avraham Kadar’s three children, Nadav Kadar, Einat Kadar Kricheli, and Maya Kadar Kovalsky, are alumni of TAU and active board members of the Foundation alongside their father.

The 2020 Kadar Family Award laureates:

Prof. Tal Ellenbogen is the Head of the Laboratory for Nanoscale Electro-Optics at the School of Electrical Engineering within the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. He studies light-matter interactions in the atmosphere to develop and improve optical technologies. Ellenbogen strives to influence industry and humanity by improving technologies that are used everywhere; mobile phones, camera lenses, computer screens, car scanners, and more.

 

 

Prof. Ilit Ferber is a member of the School of Philosophy, Linguistics and Science Studies at the Entin Faculty of Humanities. Her research examines the relationship between human communication and painful emotions such as melancholy, loss and anxiety. These emotions, generally perceived as negative, can cause language communication to collapse, making it difficult to express pain. Ferber believes, however, that painful emotions can open up a new world of communicating these feelings without words.

 

 

Prof. Ishay Rosen-Zvi belongs to the Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology at the Entin Faculty of Humanities.  He specializes in Talmudic literature and culture and has researched and written on the Midrash and Mishnah, as well as on issues of self-formation and collective identity in Second-Temple Judaism and rabbinic literature. He is a recipient of the Alon Fellowship and serves as a mentor for numerous master’s and PhD students.

 

 

Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro is the Chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine. Her research focuses on the interactions between cancer calls and their microenvironments, including tumor progression and angiogenesis. For the past five years, she has worked on using the immune system to attack cancer cells using nanotechnology. In 2020, her team pivoted their work to find a COVID-19 nano-vaccine, and plan to translate research findings into clinical trials soon. She has published close to 100 scientific articles and registered numerous patents.

 

 

 
featured image: Virtual Kadar Award Ceremony 2020

TAU Scientists Develop Innovative Therapy to Prevent Deafness

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The treatment is inserted into the ear, prevents hearing loss caused by a genetic mutation.

A new study at Tel Aviv University presents an innovative treatment for deafness, based on the delivery of genetic material into the cells of the inner ear. The genetic material ‘replaces’ the genetic defect and enables the cell to continue functioning normally.

The scientists were able to prevent the gradual deterioration of hearing in mice with a genetic mutation for deafness. They maintain that this novel therapy could lead to a breakthrough in treating children born with various mutations that eventually cause deafness.

The study was led by Prof. Karen Avraham and Shahar Taiber, a student in the combined MD-PhD track, from the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, and Prof. Jeffrey Holt from Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Additional contributors included Prof. David Sprinzak from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University. The paper was published in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Deafness is the most common sensory disability worldwide. According to the World Health Organization there are about half a billion people with hearing loss around the world today, and this figure is expected to double in the coming decades. One in every 200 children is born with a hearing impairment, and one in every 1,000 is born deaf. In about half of these cases, deafness is caused by a genetic mutation. There are currently about 100 different genes associated with hereditary deafness. 

Prof. Avraham: “In this study we focused on genetic deafness caused by a mutation in the gene SYNE4 – a rare deafness discovered by our lab several years ago in two Israeli families, and since then identified in Turkey and the UK as well. Children inheriting the defective gene from both parents are born with normal hearing, but gradually lose their hearing during childhood. This happens because the mutation causes mislocalization of cell nuclei in the hair cells inside the cochlea of the inner ear, which serve as soundwave receptors and are thus essential for hearing. This defect leads to the degeneration and eventual death of hair cells.” 

Shahar Taiber: “We implemented an innovative gene therapy technology: we created a harmless synthetic virus and used it to deliver genetic material – a normal version of the gene that is defective in both the mouse model and the affected human families. We injected the virus into the inner ear of the mice, so that it entered the hair cells and released its genetic payload. By so, we repaired the defect in the hair cells, and enabled them to mature and function normally.”

The treatment was administered soon after birth and the mice’s hearing was then monitored using both physiological and behavioral tests. Prof. Holt: “The findings are most promising: Treated mice developed normal hearing, with sensitivity almost identical to that of healthy mice who do not have the mutation”. Following the successful study, the scientists are currently developing similar therapies for other mutations that cause deafness.

Prof. Wade Chien, MD, from the NIDCD/NIH Inner Ear Gene Therapy Program and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, illuminates its significance: This is an important study that shows that inner ear gene therapy can be effectively applied to a mouse model of SYNE4 deafness to rescue hearing. The magnitude of hearing recovery is impressive. This study is a part of a growing body of literature showing that gene therapy can be successfully applied to mouse models of hereditary hearing loss, and it illustrates the enormous potential of gene therapy as a treatment for deafness.

The study was supported by the BSF – US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, the NIH – National Institutes of Health, the ERC – European Research Council, and the Israel Precision Medicine Partnership Program of the Israel Science Foundation.

Two TAU Professors Win 2020 Nature Mentoring Award

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Prof. Neta Erez and Prof. Tal Pupko, nominated by students, are building the future generation of scientists.

Two scientists from Tel Aviv University – Professor Neta Erez, head of the Department of Pathology at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine, and Professor Tal Pupko, head of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at the Life Sciences Faculty, have won the 2020 Nature Research Awards for Mentoring in Science, given by the Springer Nature Group, which is the home of the leading journal Nature.

The prestigious award (which is given in a different country each year), was given in Israel this year, with Tel Aviv University sweeping all the honors for mid-career mentoring. The award is given to scientists who excel in mentoring research students in their laboratories, thus contributing to the development of the future of science — in Israel in particular and in the world in general. Both winners will share the $10,000 prize. They said that the prize was especially moving for them because the ones who had nominated them for it were the very ones whom they mentored — the students and graduates of their laboratories.

Professor Erez, who established a laboratory ten years ago for researching metastasis of breast cancer and melanoma, and who has mentored 16 doctoral candidates and five master’s degree students so far, said, “For me, mentoring is a central part of my identity as a scientist. When a doctoral candidate comes to me, I tell them: ‘You are starting off as my student, and I want you to end up as my peer.’ For that reason, my role as a mentor is not only to accompany the research. My role is to teach my students to think and do research like scientists, and to find their own way in science and in life in general.  I am very proud of their accomplishments. Quite a few graduates of the laboratory have been awarded prizes and grants. As of now, four of the students have completed their medical studies and are planning to combine medicine and research. One is a research fellow and a lab manager in an academic setting, another is doing post-doctoral work in the United States, and four others are working as scientists in the biotech industry. In addition, I serve as a mentor for two young researchers who recently established their own laboratories.” 

Professor Pupko, who established a laboratory 17 years ago that deals with molecular evolution and bioinformatics, has mentored 18 doctoral candidates so far. “The members of the academic staff are evaluated based on a variety of parameters: research grants, publications and teaching. Another index, which I feel does not receive enough emphasis, is the success of a staff member’s laboratory graduates — the young scientists whom he taught, mentored, and ‘raised.'” I invest a great deal of thought and effort in my students in order to support, encourage, advise, and nurture them. All 12 doctoral candidates who completed their degree in my laboratory have gone on to do post-doctoral work.  Four of them are staff members in academia (including three at Tel Aviv University) — a particularly high number for an academic research laboratory. Other graduates of my laboratory hold high-ranking positions in the hi-tech and bio-tech industries. As I see it, a student who excels is better than another three scientific papers. My aim is to raise up generations of researchers in Israel. I see that as my mission.”

The prize committee, which included Professor Karen Avraham of the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, announced that it had chosen the two recipients because “it was impressed with their contagious enthusiasm of former students,” who had nominated them for the award. The committee also praised Professor Pupko for his inclusive approach and encouragement of a healthy work-life balance alongside professional excellence, and Professor Erez for her work to advance women in science and for projects that bring her influence as a mentor to wider circles, including ones outside her laboratory.

Globalization During the Bronze & Early Iron Ages

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Evidence for trade from India & Southeast Asia to the Land of Israel in the 16th century BCE.

A new international study, which included researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority, reveals significant global trade between India & Southeast Asia and the Land of Israel as early as the 16th century BCE. Traded goods included exotic foods like soybeans, bananas and turmeric – almost one thousand years before any previously known availability of these foods in our region.

The study focused on food remains identified in the dental calculus of people buried at Tel Megiddo and Tel Erani (near Kiryat Gat). Examination of the teeth, dated from the 16th century BCE at Megiddo and the 11th century BCE at Tel Erani, revealed traces of various foods, including foods from Southeast Asia, such as soybeans, bananas and turmeric.

The study, led by Prof. Philipp Stockhammer of the University of Munich, involved researchers from institutions around the world. TAU was represented by Prof. Israel Finkelstein and Dr. Mario Martin of the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures; and the Israel Antiquities Authority was represented by Dr. Ianir Milevski and Dmitry Yegorov of the Excavations, Surveys and Research Department. The findings were published in the PNAS journal in December 2020.

The researchers explain that when we picture the market of the city of Megiddo 3,700 years ago, we think of local foods like wheat, dates and sesame seeds, and sure enough, ancient proteins and microfossils from these staple foods were found in the examined jawbones. However, alongside these expected findings, traces of soybeans, bananas and turmeric were also discovered.

According to the researchers, this is the earliest evidence of soybeans, bananas and turmeric found anywhere outside of Southeast Asia. The discovery pushes back the earliest known availability of these foods in the Land of Israel and the Mediterranean Basin by centuries (turmeric) and even a thousand years (soybeans). This means that long-distance trade in exotic fruits, spices and oils was conducted between Southeast Asia and the region of the Land of Israel, through Mesopotamia or Egypt, as early as the second millennium BCE – namely, globalization in the Bronze and early Iron Ages. Clearly, no bananas would have survived the journey from Southeast Asia to Megiddo, and therefore we can assume that these were delivered and consumed as dry fruits.

“This is clear evidence of trade with southeast Asia as early as the 16th century BCE – much earlier than previously assumed,” explains Prof. Finkelstein. “Several years ago, we found similar evidence of long-distance trade: molecular traces of vanilla in ceramic vessels from the same period at Megiddo. Yet very little is known about the trade routes or how the goods were delivered.”

“One surprising find in our excavation at Tel Erani was a cemetery from the Early Iron Age – about 3,100 years ago,” report Dr. Ianir Milevski and Dmitry Yegorov of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “In some tombs we found families buried together, children alongside their parents. We also found burial offerings – bowls, jugs and pitchers buried with the dead, for their use in the afterlife. In some vessels, we found animal bones, mostly the remains of sheep and goats, intended as food for the dead. We plan to further investigate the vessels, in search of remains of bananas and sesame seeds similar to those found in the teeth of the people buried with them. Dr. Milevski and Yegorov added that they are collaborating with Prof. Stockhammer, in testing the DNA in the human bones, in an attempt to understand who these people were and where they came from.”

Soy was first domesticated in the region of China in the 7th millennium BCE. The banana, domesticated in New Guinea in the 5th millennium BCE, arrived in West Africa 4,000 years later, but until now no indication was found of any earlier appearance of this fruit in the Middle East.

Turmeric and soy proteins were discovered in the jawbone of one person in Megiddo, and banana proteins were found in two jawbones from Tel Erani. Thus, we cannot determine just how accessible these foods were to anyone from any social class. The researchers assume that the jawbones probably belonged to people of relatively high social status in the city-state of Megiddo. This is apparent from the structure of the tombs and the offerings placed in them. In addition, the researchers found evidence of the consumption of sesame seeds in jawbones from both Megiddo and Tel Erani, indicating that this was a significant component of the local cuisine as early as the second millennium BCE.

“Our study demonstrates the immense possibilities embodied in the incorporation of the exact and natural sciences into modern archaeological research,” concludes Prof. Finkelstein.  “Traditional archaeology, which may also be called macro-archaeology, provides data visible to the eye – such as buildings, pottery, jewelry and weapons. A whole world of other data, of critical importance, is revealed only under the microscope and by using advanced analytical methods.”

Featured image: Prof. Israel Finkelstein

Enemies: A Love Story

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TAU’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies is global authority on modern Iran and Iranian Jews.

By Melanie Takefman

Even though they have been enemies in official channels for decades, Iranians and Israelis have a mutual fascination with each other.

“Young Iranians are very intrigued by Israelis and are eager to contact them through social media,” says Dr. Liora Hendelman-Baavur, the new director of TAU’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and a historian of Iranian women and media in the 20th century. “They want to know what is beyond the image of the ‘Zionist enemy’ as presented by Iranian sources.”

In parallel, the popularity of Teheran, a critically-acclaimed TV series about a Mossad agent in Iran, attests to the complex perception of Iran in Israel; Israelis view Iran as a threat but many are also nostalgic for the good relations the two countries enjoyed until 1979.

At TAU, this interest goes beyond curiosity. Now, in its 15th year, TAU’s Alliance Center is the region’s leading hub for academic research on Iran outside of Iran itself.

With the Iranian-Israeli conflict constantly in the news, the Center is more relevant than ever.

No group encapsulates the precariousness of this relationship more than Iran’s 20,000-member Jewish community, says Hendelman-Baavur. Recent Iranian legislation enshrined its boycott of Israel and underscored local Jews’ status as a minority at risk. The law makes it illegal for Iranians to meet with Israelis, a hard blow to Iranian Jews who until now could meet Israeli relatives in a third country.

Because Iranian Jews are a main focus of the Alliance Center’s research, a photo exhibit documenting the community entitled “Trapped Minority” was planned to celebrate the Center’s 15th anniversary. Although the exhibit was postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19, some of the photos by Iranian exile Hasan Sarbakhshian are published exclusively here.

Founded in 2005, the Center was the vision of TAU governor and honorary doctor Lord David Alliance of the UK as well as David and Laura Merage of the USA and TAU Prof. Emeritus David Menashri. United in their fondness for their birth land’s language, culture and history, they dreamt of establishing a center that would generate new insights into Iran.

Fifteen years later, their vision has become a reality.

The Center has cultivated a generation of Iran scholars who work in think tanks, major media, diplomacy, security institutions and other related fields. Hendelman-Baavur and her colleagues Prof. Meir Litvak (former director of the Center) and Dr. Miriam Nissimov are highly sought-after experts in international academic forums. The Center has published and co-sponsored 20 books and has hosted dozens of conferences, workshops and other events in its short existence. Moreover, it has become a keeper of Iranian Jewish heritage under the auspices of the Habib Levy Program for Iranian Jewish History and its sizable archive as well as the Program for the Study of Iranian Jews in Israel under the auspices of the Iranian American Jewish Federation of New York.

The Center also publishes the ACIS Iran-Pulse, a digital newsletter regularly cited by top international organizations.

The unusual situation of being an expert on a place she has never visited and probably never will doesn’t faze Hendelman-Baavur. On the contrary, she says it has made her a more thorough scholar. She often checks multiple sources and cross-references information. Because she cannot contact her Iranian colleagues, she has developed a robust network of Iran scholars around the world with whom she can collaborate. She follows Iranian Twitter and Telegram feeds and Persian-language news apps religiously.  

Similarly, the Center attracts international students from the region and beyond, including the United States and Turkey. This, Hendelman-Baavur says, is proof of its continuing relevance. Looking forward, she sees TAU strengthening its role as a global authority on Iran’s modern history and Iranian Jewry, specifically because of this unique perspective.

Fetured image: Dr. Liora Hendelman-Baavur, the new director of TAU’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies. Photo: Moshe Bedarshi

Twelve TAU Researchers among Top 50 in their Fields

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“A cause for real national pride,” says Research VP of the Stanford University study.

A new study from Stanford University places 12 TAU faculty members among the world’s top 50 researchers in their respective fields.

The study identified the top 2% researchers in various disciplines worldwide. The list includes 160,000 researchers from 149 countries in 22 scientific disciplines and 176 subdisciplines. Among these, 333 TAU faculty members are ranked among the top 2% researchers in their respective disciplines (based on publications, citations, and impact). Moreover, 155 of them are included in the top 1%, and 74 in the top 0.5%.

TAU’s Vice President for Research, Prof. Dan Peer, ranked among the top 0.4% in the world in nanotechnology: “This is a cause for real national pride. TAU is known for its academic excellence and recognized as a leading interdisciplinary university. It is a great honor for us that 333 of our researchers rank among the top 2% of the world’s best researchers.”

Prof. Itzhak Gilboa from the School of Economics is 6th in the world in Theoretical Economics, and his colleague Prof. Emeritus David Schmeidler from the School of Mathematics is 12th in the world in the same discipline. Prof. Jiska Cohen-Mansfield from the Faculty of Medicine is ranked 12th in the world in the field of Geriatrics. Three faculty members from the Faculty of Engineering also rank high in their fields of research: Prof. Emilia Fridman (26), Prof. Emeritus Gedeon Dagan (29) and Prof. Boris Malomed (29).

Prof. Emeritus Micha Sharir from the School of Computer Science is ranked 35th and Prof. Arie Levant from the School of Mathematics is ranked 36th. Four faculty members from the Faculty of Humanities are also included in this exceptional group:  Prof. Emeritus Rachel Giora from the Department of Linguistics (ranked 40th in the world), Prof. Prof. Israel Finkelstein from the Department of Archaeology (44), Prof. Emeritus Benjamin Isaac from the Department of Classics (45), and Prof. Emeritus Elana Shohamy from the School of Education (47).

Researchers from TAU have developed a technology that enables photographing moving objects

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The new development will enable taking photos of race cars, runners, birds in flight, and dunking basketballs into hoops.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have developed a computational photography process based on an optical element that encodes motion information and a corresponding digital image processing algorithm, enabling clear, sharp photography of moving objects without motion blur, i.e. avoiding the movement being “smeared” over the picture.

This integrated processing method was developed by PhD student Shay Elmalem from the School of Electrical Engineering in the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, under the joint guidance of Prof. Emanuel Marom and Dr. Raja Giryes. The results of the study have been published in the prestigious Optica Journal (by OSA Publishing).

The term ‘long exposure’ always refers to the velocity of the photographed object”, explains Shay Elmalem. “If you photograph a racing car, even an exposure of a tenth of a second could be too long, and if you’re photographing a person walking, long exposure could be a second or longer. According to the conventional camera design approach, the lens is designed to produce the best possible image, i.e., the most similar to what the human eye sees, and thereafter digital image processing algorithms are applied to remove the optical distortions. However, as anyone with a camera in their phone knows, this isn’t always effective; hence, it is still very difficult to photograph moving objects”.

Through integrated design of the optical components and image post-processing algorithms, Elmalem and his colleagues have encoded motion information cues in the raw optical image; these cues are in turn decoded by the image processing algorithm which utilizes them for motion deblurring.. The cues have been encoded using two optical components integrated in a conventional lens: a clear phase plate developed by the researchers, and a commercial electronic focusing lens. The phase plate contains a micro-optical structure designed to introduce a color-focus dependency, whereas the focusing lens is synchronized in order to make a gradual focus change during the image exposure. As a result, moving objects are colored with various colors as they move. Encoding the colors enables the algorithm to decode the direction and velocity of the object’s movement, which enables it to correct the motion blur and restore the image sharpness.

“In every split second of exposure, our lens generates a bit different image”, Elmalem explains; “thus, the blur of a moving object will not be uniform, but rather change gradually with its movement. In order to understand where and how fast the object in the image is going, we use color. Thus, for example, a white ball suddenly thrown into the frame will be colored with different colors over the course of its movement, like passing light through a prism. According to these colors, our algorithm knows where the ball has been thrown from and at what velocity. It will thus know how to correct the blur. With a regular camera we’d see a white wake that would compromise the sharpness of the whole picture, whereas with our camera the final image will be a clear focused white ball.”

According to Elmalem, the computational image technique they developed can enhance any camera – and at minimum cost. “The potential is very broad: from basic uses like smartphone cameras to research, medical and industrial uses such as for production line controllers, microscopes and telescopes. They all suffer from the same smearing problem, and we offer a systemic solution to it.”

Ramot, the Technology Transfer Company of Tel-Aviv University has filed several patent applications covering this breakthrough technology, which is generating great interest among industry players. 

Prof. Marom passed away during the study, and the paper has been published in his memory. The late Prof. Marom was among the founders of the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, served as its Dean in 1980-1983 and Vice President of Tel Aviv University in 1992-1997. After his retirement, Prof. Marom continued dealing in active research and advising graduate students, until his very last day.

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