Lavine Family Fellow
Israeli University: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Columbia Affiliation: Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory
Faculty Host: Prof. Brian Metzger
Research Topic: Relativistic Dynamics of Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals Around Spinning Black Holes
Yael Alush is a Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at Columbia University. She completed her PhD in Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as an Azrieli Fellow, under the supervision of Nicholas Stone. Her research focuses on massive black holes at the centers of galaxies and the dynamics of the star clusters that surround them. She studies two of the most extreme events in the Universe: tidal disruption events, in which a star is torn apart by the gravitational forces of a supermassive black hole, and extreme mass ratio inspirals, in which a compact object gradually spirals into a massive black hole while emitting gravitational waves. Her research addresses key uncertainties in theoretical models, contributing directly to tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and advances our understanding of the Universe.
Russell Berrie Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: Weizman Institute of Science
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Systems Biology and Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center
Faculty Hosts: Prof. Tal Korem, Prof. Mohammed AlQuraishi
Research Topic: Nutritional influence on the human antimicrobial resistome
Dr. Saar Shoer earned her PhD in Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute of Science under the joint supervision of Prof. Eran Segal and Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel. In her doctoral research, she applied data science and machine learning to study the genetic diversity of the human microbiota and its health implications. As part of this work, she discovered 310 novel bacterial species and demonstrated that the level of genetic variability within species is linked to bacterial stress-response mechanisms. Her research has been published in Cell Med, Cell Host & Microbe, Nature communications and Nature Medicine, and presented at several international conferences.
Saar is also active in mentorship and education, having guided students and developed public tutorials on integrating artificial intelligence into scientific research. She has received several honors, including the Weizmann Dean’s Prize of Excellence for Outstanding PhD and the Russell Berrie Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellowship. In her postdoctoral research in the Department of Systems Biology at Columbia University, advised by Prof. Tal Korem and Prof. Mohammed AlQuraishi, she studies the burgeoning global crisis of antimicrobial resistance using deep learning models.
Hoffen Family Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: Ben-Gurion University
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering
Faculty Host: Prof. James Anderson
Research Topic: Physics-Informed Deep Learning for Video Authentication and Media Forensics
Lital Dabush received her Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where her research focused on graph signal processing, statistical signal processing, and model-based deep learning, with applications to dynamic network inference, sampling and recovery, and detection in areas such as power systems, transportation networks, and wireless sensor networks.
Lital completed both her B.Sc. in Physics (cum laude) and her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) in 2020, followed by an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (cum laude) in 2021, all from Ben-Gurion University. Her academic path has been recognized with a range of prestigious awards, including the Intel Prize for Outstanding Students, the Apple Excellence Award, the Ministry of Energy Ph.D. Fellowship, and the Ariane de Rothschild Women's Doctoral Fellowship. She also gained industry experience as a Student Algorithm Developer at Mobileye.
Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: Tel-Aviv University
Columbia Affiliation: Zuckerman Institute
Faculty Host: Prof. Nathaniel Sawtell
Research Topic: Building Internal Models: How Cerebellar Circuits Learn and Adapt in Natural Behavior
Lidor Spivak is a neuroscience postdoctoral researcher at the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University. In his research, he focuses on how the cerebellum supports learning, timing, and prediction. To understand how cerebellar circuits implement these functions, Lidor combines optogenetics and high-density electrophysiology in freely moving mice with computational analysis. He earned his PhD from Tel Aviv University's Sagol School for Neuroscience.
Hoffen Family Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: Tel-Aviv University
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering
Faculty Host: Prof. Gil Zussman
Research Topic: Towards the Quantum Internet: Ensuring the Resiliency of a Large-Scale Emerging Quantum Network
Jhonatan Tavori is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wireless and Mobile Networking (WiMNet) Lab at Columbia University, working with Prof. Gil Zussman. Dr. Tavori received the B.Sc. in Computer Science (summa cum laude) from The Open University in 2017, the M.Sc. in Computer Science (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University in 2020, and the Ph.D. in Computer Science, advised by Prof. Hanoch Levy, from Tel Aviv University in 2025. His research lies at the intersection of stochastic network analysis and security, with applications in edge-cloud systems, quantum networks, and AI pipelines. Dr. Tavori has received several awards and fellowships, including the Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Zuckerman STEM Leadership postdoctoral fellowship, the Blavatnik Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Fellows in Computer Science and the EU Horizon’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) Transatlantic Fellowship. He has been selected as the Valedictorian at both his B.Sc. and M.Sc. graduation ceremonies.
Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: Technion
Columbia Affiliation: Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC)
Faculty Host: Prof. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
Research Topic: Engineering Immune-Competent Organoid Microenvironments to Decipher Multicellular Interactions in Cancer Progression
Dr. Hagit Shoyhet is a biomedical engineering graduate specializing in tissue engineering, 3D disease modeling, and extracellular vesicle-based therapeutic strategies. She completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Prof. Shulamit Levenberg’s laboratory, where her research focused on engineering functional human tissues to study and treat complex diseases. Her work included the development of engineered skeletal muscle platforms for type 2 diabetes therapy and 3D vascularized tumor models for studying cancer–microenvironment interactions. As a Kalaniyot Fellow at Columbia University, she will pursue postdoctoral research aimed at advancing patient-specific engineered tissue models and regenerative medicine approaches.
Lavine Family Fellow
Israeli University: Technion
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering
Faculty Host: Prof. Hod Lipson
Research Topic: From sand to castle: Fully automated robotic construction from local materials
Ezra Ben-Abu is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the Technion and an Azrieli Fellow. His research focuses on multistable structures, architected materials, soft robotics, deployable structures, and metafluids. During his doctoral studies, he developed a novel method for programming and fabricating multistable structures by harnessing mechanical instabilities and nonlinear deformations in thin cylindrical shells. As a Kalaniyot Fellow at Columbia University, his postdoctoral research will explore autonomous construction of adaptive structures and scalable fabrication strategies for next-generation reconfigurable architectures.
Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry
Faculty Host: Prof. Yuval Neria
Research Topic: Longitudinal Amygdala Development Following Childhood Trauma: A Big Data Study of Resilience and Vulnerability
Dana Katsoty is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University whose research focuses on trauma, resilience, and mental health across development. She completed her Ph.D. with honors in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her doctoral research, conducted with Prof. Ariel Knafo-Noam, examined mental health in the context of continuous trauma, with a focus on predictive models and risk factors for psychopathology following the October 7th attack. She also earned her M.A. in Clinical and Educational Child Psychology with honors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dana was awarded the Allan Bronfman Prize for Excellence for her doctoral dissertation and received the Haruv Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2025, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Yuval Neria at Columbia University, where she investigates how childhood adversity, including trauma exposure and economic hardship, effect mental health trajectories and brain development.
Russell Berrie Kalaniyot Fellow
Israeli University: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Columbia Affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences and Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center
Faculty Host: Prof. Brent Stockwell
Research Topic: Finding Evidence for Ferroptosis in Pancreatic Langerhans Cells of Children with Type 2 Diabetes
Amitay is a Junior Faculty member and Consulting Physician in Pediatric Endocrinology at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel. He earned his B.Sc. in Biology, summa cum laude, from Tel Aviv University and his M.D. from the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School. Subsequently, he completed his residency in Pediatrics and a fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center.
In his clinical capacity, he serves as an Attending Physician in Pediatrics at Hadassah Mount Scopus and manage an active, diverse pediatric endocrinology clinic. He also leads dedicated Cystic Fibrosis-Related Diabetes and multidisciplinary Endocrinology-Nephrology clinics at Hadassah, providing specialized care to this complex patient population.
He is deeply involved in medical education. Having previously directed the student pediatric clerkship, he continues to extensively teach fourth and sixth-year medical students. He also actively contributes to national medical training standards as a member of the Israeli government medical licensure examination staff and the Pediatric Board Examination Committee.
As a clinician-researcher, his work bridges bedside clinical puzzles with basic laboratory science. His current research focuses on the genetic mechanisms of ovarian dysgenesis and novel approaches to rare genetic forms of diabetes, including Wolfram Syndrome Type 2. His scientific contributions have been recognized with competitive research grants and honors, including the Endocrine Society Outstanding Abstract Award in 2023 and the Israeli Society for Clinical Pediatrics Outstanding Poster Award in 2025.