CAMBRIDGE, MA (May 12, 2025) – The MIT-Kalaniyot Program proudly announces the arrival of its inaugural cohort of eight world-class Israeli researchers, ushering in a new chapter of international collaboration at the forefront of science and innovation. Rigorously selected from a competitive applicant pool, these exceptional postdoctoral fellows and sabbatical scholars represent the pinnacle of academic achievement across disciplines ranging from quantum physics and computational theory to neuroscience and next-generation AI hardware.
Founded in 2023, the MIT faculty-driven initiative was designed to strengthen academic collaboration between the United States and Israel. Each year, the program will provide prestigious fellowships and sabbatical opportunities to Israel’s brightest scientists and scholars, ensuring that groundbreaking research partnerships continue to thrive.
“Kalaniyot is about more than just academic excellence—it’s about building bridges through knowledge, collaboration, and shared purpose,” said Dr. Ernest Fraenkel, Co-Founder of MIT-Kalaniyot. “These scholars are truly inspiring. They are not only leaders in their fields—they are trailblazers whose ideas will spark progress for years to come.”
The 2025 fellows and sabbatical scholars arrive with a distinguished record of groundbreaking accomplishments, inventive insight, and transformative impact:
- Dr. Sapir Bitton – Postdoctoral Fellow (Fulbright-ISEF Fellow): Pioneering energy-efficient hardware at the intersection of electronics and ionic conduction for the future of AI computing.
- Dr. Naor Granik – Postdoctoral Fellow (Lior Merkin Excellence Award): Engineering synthetic RNA organelles with groundbreaking potential in drug delivery and protein production.
- Dr. Shahar Gvirtzman – Postdoctoral Fellow: Investigating the fundamental physics behind material failure and the onset of frictional motion—critical for engineering and geosciences.
- Dr. Esty Kelman – Postdoctoral Fellow: Advancing theoretical computer science through cutting-edge research in computational complexity and Boolean function analysis.
- Dr. Firas Mawase – Sabbatical Scholar (Globes “40 Under 40” honoree): Merging neuroscience and rehabilitation to revolutionize stroke recovery and motor learning.
- Dr. Gal Neria – Postdoctoral Fellow (ORSIS Best Paper Award): Innovating hybrid algorithms in operations research and machine learning for smarter, fairer resource allocation.
- Dr. Daniel Nevo – Sabbatical Scholar (Putter Prize): Developing mathematical models that take into account social interactions when inferring causal relationships.
- Dr. Reut Shalgi – Sabbatical Scholar (Feruccio Ritossa Award): Unlocking the molecular secrets of neurodegeneration through protein quality control research.
- Dr. Jad Silbak – Postdoctoral Fellow (Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow): Reimagining cryptographic systems with new frameworks in privacy and computational theory.
Researchers will be in residence at MIT for one to two years, immersed in collaborative research and cross-disciplinary exploration. Beyond academic rigor, MIT-Kalaniyot supports inclusive programming and faculty-hosted events that deepen engagement between the Israeli and American research communities.
The remarkable success of MIT-Kalaniyot has already sparked a movement: the newly established Kalaniyot Foundation now leads a nationwide academic network, with active chapters at elite institutions across the United States including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, and Harvard Medical School—with more to follow.
About the Kalaniyot Foundation
The Kalaniyot Foundation is a faculty-driven organization dedicated to fortifying critical academic and scientific collaboration between the United States and Israel. Named after Israel’s national flower, Kalaniyot symbolizes resilience, growth, and the blossoming of ideas across borders. Through prestigious fellowships, sabbatical opportunities, sponsored research projects, and community-building initiatives, the foundation ensures that Israeli scholars and their US counterparts can collaborate freely, fostering research and innovation that benefit humanity. Kalaniyot is committed to engaging scholars from all sectors of Israeli society to promote an inclusive and thriving academic environment. For more information about MIT-Kalaniyot, please visit https://kalaniyot.mit.edu/.To donate, please visit www.kalaniyot.org/donate.