Maya Angelou once said: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.”
Technion women have been trailblazers for generations. In 1924, at a time when academia was closed off to women in many countries, Technion’s first class of 17 students included one female.
Today, the percentage of women undergraduate students at Technion is 37%; graduate students 32%; and doctoral students 44%. This number continues to rise, with Technion’s commitment to equal ratios and empowering women in the fields of STEM.
Meet some of the Technion women who are making critical advances in human health, leading the digital revolution and developing the technologies of tomorrow.
FORBES 30 UNDER 30 ISRAEL
Technion PhD student Alona Shagan was recently featured in the Forbes Israel list for promising technological entrepreneurs.
Together with Prof. Boaz Mizrahi, Shagan developed a hot-glue and a novel adhesive to adhere human tissue that has been seriously injured. the new concept will lead to the development of devices that will reduce the use of stitches, staples and pins, speed up the healing process and reduce scarring.
Prof. Lilac Amirav and Renewable Engergy
Prof. Lilac Amirav, Technion Alumna, discusses her work in nano-scale photo-catalysis and the future of renewable energy. Prof. Amirav is a member of the Grand Technion Energy Project (GTEP) and the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry.
Resolving Antibiotic Resistance
Michelle Heymann and Diane Abensur were recent immigrants to Israel (Heymann from Brazil and Abensur from France) when they met while studying for in the Technion’s MBA program. Together they founded medical start-up Nanosynex, which has developed a method of precisely adapting antibiotics to infections to enable more effective and faster treatment.
The Next Cancer Killer
Prof. Marcelle Machluf, a Technion alumnus, received a $5 million investment from “aMoon”, an Israeli health-tech and life sciences fund, to commercialize her cancer-fighting NanoGhost technology. Prof. Machluf’s research uses a revolutionary bio-medical nano-technology which targets specific tumors to shrink the deadliest forms of cancer.
Professor Asya Rolls: A Pioneer in Psychology
Can emotions affect health? Is it possible that thoughts impact the body’s ability to cope with disease? Assoc. Prof. Asya Rolls’ ground-breaking research on how thoughts and emotions impact health has been recognized with numerous young scientist awards. Most recently, Rolls successfully dramatically shrank brain tumors by activating the neural reward system.
A Leader In Research
Dr. Shulamit Levenberg, Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology was named by Scientific American as a “Research Leader” in tissue engineering, for her seminal work on vascularization of engineered tissues. She is founder and chief scientific officer of two start-up companies in the areas of cultured meat and nano-liter arrays for rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
Grand Technion Energy Program
Prof. Sabrina Spatari is leading the Grand Technion Energy Program Life Cycle Assessment which analyzes new renewable energy technologies at an early stage of development and analyzes whether or not these technologies have the potential to contribute large scale environmental benefits to society.
She has Reading on the Brain
Technion alumna and Professor Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, is the Director of the Educational Neuro-imaging Center in the Technion Faculties of Education in Science and Technology, and Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Horowitz-Kraus believes that “reading is not an intuitive process”. She uses her lab to assess and predict whether or not kids will have reading difficulties with the help of electroencephalogram (EEG).
How Data can change the World
Dr. Kira Radinsky, Technion alumna, discusses the potential for artificial intelligence (A.I.) to predict events and patterns in disease, genocide, riots, and drug effects based on data analysis. Radinksy joined eBay in 2016 after they acquired of her company, SalesPredict. She has since become a pioneer in the field of data science through her machine learning solutions which are transforming the future of e-commerce.
Dr. Silva Behar-Harpaz: Inspiring a Love of Math & Physics
Dr. Silvia Behar Harpaz received her Ph.D. in physics from the Technion, during which she spent time at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project in Switzerland, which is the world’s largest particle accelerator. She has also taught at Technion’s campus in China and is always inspired to teach to students who are “highly motivated, hard-working and invested in learning”. She has been an inspiration to many of her students as she continues to receive many awards for her excellence in teaching.
These are just some of the inspirational Technion women whose passion, curiosity and intelligence will create critical advancements in science and technology, while inspiring the next generation of women to take on whatever challenges they choose!