January 2026: Edmond J. Safra Annual Fellowship Ceremony 2025-2026
The annual fellowship and prizes ceremony of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics took place on January 22, 2026, at TAU.
Edmond J. Safra Annual Fellowship Ceremony 2025-2026
The annual fellowship and prizes ceremony of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics took place on January 22, 2026, in Jaglom hall, at TAU.
Every year, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics holds a ceremony where it presents fellowship certificates and excellence prizes to student fellows and awardees of all degrees.
The event this year was attended by the Vice Rector, Prof. Gal Oestreicher-Singer, as well as the Dean of Medical & Health Sciences, Prof. Karen Avraham, the Dean of Life Sciences, Prof. Abdussalam Azem, and the Head of the School of Computer Science & AI, Prof. Roded Sharan. The guest of honor was Mr. Ariel Greenberg, the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation’s representative in Israel.
The ceremony commenced with an opening address by Prof. Elhanan Borenstein, the head of the Center. Prof. Borenstein began by honoring the memory of our late student, Gal Meir Eizenkot z"l, an undergraduate student in bioinformatics, who has fallen over two years ago during the Iron Swords war. Prior to commencing the event, participants were given a designed brochure, listing the Edmond J. Safra student fellows across all degrees.
The Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics is marking its 21st year, and Prof. Borenstein provided a brief overview of the Center's activities and accomplishments, highlighting the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic foundation's generous support over the years.
The ceremony continued with wholehearted greetings by Profs. Oestreicher-Singer and Avraham and by Mr. Greenberg, who greeted the students and their families.
This year's awardees of the Edmond J. Safra Center Excellent Research Student Prize were Yadid Algavi, MD-PhD student (Borenstein lab, Medical & Health Sciences) and Rami Nasser, Edmond J. Safra PhD fellow (Sharan lab, Computer Science & AI). The prize is awarded annually to one or two research students with outstanding scientific record.
Shiri Baum, Edmond J. Safra MSc student fellow (Borenstein lab, Computer Science & AI), then delivered an engaging talk titled "On microbiome bacteria, trees, and disease".
The musical interlude was a delightful highlight, featuring two of our talented student fellows, Naama Gloor, Edmond J. Safra MSc Fellow (Medical & Health Sciences) on violin, and Shai Cohen, Edmond J. Safra PhD Fellow (Engineering) on guitar. Together, they performed a heart‑warming version of the Beatles’ classic "All You Need Is Love".
An impressive number of 91(!) fellowships were awarded to excellent bioinformatics students in all degrees, including undergraduate and graduate students. During the certificate distribution, personal highlights and details about the research conducted by each student fellow were shared.
We are immensely proud of our Edmond J. Safra student fellows across all degrees!
For pictures from the event, click here.
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