Saar Shoer

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.