From Hong Kong to Montreal and Toronto, Canada, and from New York to Tennessee, 28 college undergraduates who major in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) are participating in the 12th annual Summer Science Research Internship Program, a joint Bar-Ilan University-Yeshiva University initiative.
The Program enables students to gain hands-on experience in emerging scientific fields while being mentored by Israel’s finest scientists.
During the seven-week research experience, the students conduct intensive internships in the University’s STEM research laboratories with faculty members from the Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering, Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, and the Departments of Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, and Psychology.
This year’s participants are students from Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, Barnard, Harvard University, Cornell University, Princeton University, Queens College, Touro College, Middlesex College, Rutgers University, The Cooper Union, and the State University of New York at Binghamton.
For the fifth year, Prof. Arlene Wilson-Gordon, of Bar-Ilan’s Department of Chemistry, is directing the program, pairing students with Bar-Ilan faculty members and research assignments that would best enhance their summer experience and promote individual growth and career development.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for students from abroad to participate in research in Bar-Ilan’s state-of-the-art labs and to get to know researchers from all the diverse sectors of Israeli society,” says Gordon.
The program also includes trips to Israel Aerospace Industries, the Volcani Institute, Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center, and the Teperberg Winery. The students hear lectures by Bar-Ilan scholars on a wide range of topics, as well as night activities, Torah learning, and Shabbatonim at YU’s Gruss Institute in Jerusalem, where the group is housed.
Among the diverse research the students are conducting in Bar-Ilan labs this summer: understanding the function of the Condanine-1 gene responsible for Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type 1, advancing groundbreaking research on aging, and analyzing hardware methods for improving and accelerating the analysis of genomic data.
Aspiring computer science engineers and identical twins Emily and Nicole Haller, from Long Island, New York, are conducting research in Prof. Hillel Kugler’s lab at Bar-Ilan’s Kofkin Faculty of Engineering.
“The opportunity to be part of an environment that advances our career goals and to take part in the Jewish studies aspect of the program is a perfect fit,” says Nicole. “Just being in Israel and getting exposed to its advanced technology on a daily basis has been great,” adds Emily.
The program is funded by the late Dr. Mordecai Katz OBM and Dr. Monique Katz, the Irving I. Stone Foundation, and the Zoltan Erenyi Fund.
