February 2024: Edmond J. Safra Annual Fellowship Ceremony 2023-2024

Edmond J. Safra Annual Fellowship Ceremony 2023-2024

The annual Edmond J. Safra Center’s fellowship and prizes ceremony took place on February 26, 2024, at TAU.

The academic year was opened under unusual circumstances and in the shadow of the Iron Swords war. Many students are still in reserve duty, and our thoughts are with the fallen soldiers and their families, the hostages, and the wounded.

This past December, we also learned with great sadness that our dear student, the late Gal Meir Eizenkot z”l, has fallen in the war. Gal was a second-year student in bioinformatics. We send our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Every year we hold a ceremony where we present the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics and hand out fellowship certificates to student fellows and awardees of all degrees. Due to the current situation, the ceremony, which was originally scheduled for January 2024, has been postponed, and eventually took place on Monday, February 26, 2024 at 3:00 PM, in Jaglom Hall, at TAU. Moreover, given the challenging circumstances and respecting current times, this year’s ceremony took a smaller and more constrained get-together format, without some of the celebratory elements we usually include in this annual event.

The ceremony was attended by the Deans, Prof. Karen Avraham, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Prof. Tova Milo, Faculty of Exact Sciences, Prof. Noam Eliaz, Faculty of Engineering, and Prof. Sivan Toledo, Head of the School of Computer Science.

Prior to commencing the event, participants were given a designed brochure, listing the Edmond J. Safra student fellows across all degrees. It also included a memory page dedicated to Gal z”l.

The ceremony commenced with an opening address by Prof. Elhanan Borenstein, the head of the Center, honoring Gal's memory and extending sincere and heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and classmates.

Prof. Borenstein then briefly described the Center's activities and accomplishments.

Prof. Avraham greeted the audience.

This year's awardee of the Edmond J. Safra Center Excellent Research Student Prize was PhD student fellow Keren Halabi (Mayrose lab, Life Sciences).  The prize is awarded annually to a research student with outstanding scientific record.

Ella Rannon, Edmond J. Safra PhD student fellow (Burstein lab, Life Sciences), then delivered an engaging talk titled "Bioinformatics as a tool in the fight against antibiotic resistance".

A record number of 87 fellowships were awarded to excellent bioinformatics students in all degrees, including undergraduate and graduate students.

For pictures from the event, click here.