The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Institute will be honored by President Reuven Rivlin on Monday for its $100 million initiative to provide scholarships to the next generation of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) leaders in the United States and Israel. The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program will give the highest-achieving American post-doctoral researchers and graduate students the ability to collaborate with leading researchers at Israel’s top research institutions – the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; Tel Aviv University; and the Weizmann Institute of Science – which are among the world’s most advanced.
The first cohort of 14 Zuckerman Scholars began with the 2016–2017 academic year. The Institute’s long-term intent is to ensure that the Zuckerman Scholars and the program’s related educational activities continue in perpetuity. In the next twenty years alone, the program intends to provide more than $100 million in scholarships and related educational activities that will benefit not only the participating scholars and universities, but the public as well.