Brandeis-Israel research collaborations announced

Program aims to encourage joint research, deepen institutional ties

A class at the Technion -- the Israel Institute of Technology.

Five faculty projects have won funding for the second year of the Bronfman Brandeis-Israel Research Collaboration.

The Bronfman program was set up to encourage and support joint projects of scholarly merit between Brandeis faculty and faculty at Israeli universities, and to strengthen institutional relationships between Brandeis and Israeli institutions.

Awards cover research costs for the initial stage of projects and travel funds to allow face-to-face meetings of the research teams. Funding is provided by Bronfman Philanthropies, which oversees a family of charitable foundations in Israel, Canada and the United States.

"The selection committee was extremely impressed by both the quantity and the quality of this year's applications,” said committee chair Irving Epstein, who is senior adviser to the provost for research and the Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry.

“We received more than twice as many applications as we did last year, and could easily have funded several additional outstanding projects if we had more resources,” Epstein said. “The program clearly addresses an important need, and we are grateful to the Bronfman Philanthropies for supporting it."

This year’s winning projects are:

• A collaboration between Associate Professor of Biology Dan Perlman and Prof. Yehudit Judy Dori, dean of the Division of Continuing Education and External Studies at the Technion in Haifa. Perlman is Brandeis’ associate provost for assessment and innovation in student learning; he and Dori will study long-term retention among students in higher education and core science learning at Brandeis.

• A collaboration between three Brandeisians and three members of the faculty and administration at Al-Quds University, in Jerusalem, to research the kinds of curricular and pedagogical frameworks that are most effective at fostering civic engagement in developing democratic societies. Collaborators include Daniel T. Kryder, associate professor of politics; Susan S. Lanser, professor of English, women’s and gender studies, and comparative literature; Daniel Terris, Brandeis director of the existing Brandeis-Al Quds Partnership; Khuloud Khayyat Dajani, Al-Quds director of the partnership, Awad Mansour, chair of Al-Qud’s Department of Political Science and Imad Abu Kishek, executive vice president of Al-Quds.

• A project of the Rose Art Museum and the Israel Museum to develop the first phase in a series of research-based, thematic exhibitions, accompanied by scholarly publications, to be featured at both museums. Brandeis participants will be Christopher Bedford, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose, and Gannit Ankori, chair in Israeli art in the Department of Fine Arts and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. Israel Museum participants will be Mira Lapidot, Yulla and Jaques Lipchitz Chief Curator of the museum, and Amitai Mendelsohn, curator of the David Orgler Department of Israeli Art.

• A study of ongoing reforms to Israel’s mental health system involving the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute (MJB), Israel’s leading center for applied research on social policy and services,  and faculty of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Heller participants include Associate Professor of Social Policy Dominic Hodgkin, Associate Dean for Research Constance M. Horgan and Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health policy Stuart Altman.   MJB participants are Dr. Bruce Rosen, director of the Smokler Center for Health Policy Research and MJB Director Jack Habib.

• A collaboration between Associate Professor of Sociology Wendy Cadge and Associate Professor of Sociology Michal Pagis of Bar Ilan university to investigate the penetration of religious practices, discourses and agents into secular medical spheres in Israel.