Board of Governors
As set out in the 1972 agreement between the United States and Israel that established the BSF, the Foundation is governed by a Board of Governors consisting of 10 members, five from each country, appointed by the respective governments. The Board is responsible for determining financial and policy issues of the Foundation. The Board meets twice a year, once in Jerusalem and once in Washington D.C. The chair and vice chair of the BSF alternate annually between the two countries.
The following are the Board of Governor Members for 2024-2025:
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BiographyProfessor Yoseph A. Mekori
ChairProfessor Mekori is an alumnus of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, where he earned his M.D. degree magna cum laude in 1975. After completing his residency in internal medicine with honors in 1981 at the TAU–affiliated Meir Medical Center, he moved to the USA where he completed clinical and research fellowships in allergy and immunology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and at the Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Professor Mekori’s main research interests include pathogenesis of the allergic inflammation, and mast cell physiology/mast cell T-cell interaction, with special focus on mast cell function in non-allergic inflammatory processes. In 1986, he established and headed the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Meir Hospital, and in 1990 was appointed Chairman of Medicine in that hospital. Until recently, he served as Head of the Mast Cell Disorders Center at Meir, a center of excellence recognized by the World Allergy Organization.
A fellow of the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology, Prof. Mekori maintains membership in numerous professional organizations, including the European Academy of Allergy and Immunology and the Collegium Internationale Allergologicum. He also served as the President of the Israeli Society of Allergy and Immunology. In 2006, Prof. Mekori was appointed Dean of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, a position he held until 2014. He also served as a Visiting Scientist in the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases, NIH, and as a Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and at Stanford University Medical School. From 2015 and up to his nomination as Chairperson of the Planning and Budgeting Committee, he served as the President of Tel Hai Academic College, Israel. In July 2023 Prof. Mekori was named as the 2024 recipient of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) Special Recognition Award.
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BiographyChristin Kjelland
Deputy Office Director, U.S. Department of StateChristin currently serves as Deputy Director in the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation, covering topics including research integrity and security, G7, G20, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). In 2019-2020, Christin served with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as a Policy Advisor for International Affairs, where she led engagements including with Brazil, Australia, and the UK, and coordinated regular calls between Chief Science Advisors on COVID-19. Kjelland was Chair of the APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology, and Innovation in 2017 and 2018, and Vice Chair in 2015 and 2016.
Prior to joining the State Department, Kjelland earned a Masters of International Affairs degree focusing on Asia and Natural Resources from the George Washington University. Kjelland also worked at a Minneapolis-based environmental consulting firm on environmental education and conservation programs. She taught English in the Republic of Korea as a Fulbright Scholar from 2005-2006.
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BiographyMs. Cathleen Campbell, U.S.A.
President and CEO (retired), CRDF GlobalCathy Campbell has four decades of experience in international science, technology and security programs, policies and management. In 2017-2018 she was a Visiting Scholar in the AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy where she researched national approaches to science diplomacy among Arab countries. Prior to AAAS, she served for ten years as President and Chief Executive Office of CRDF Global, where she led science diplomacy initiatives and oversaw science cooperation with over forty countries. Previously, Cathy served as director of the Office of International Technology Policy and Programs, Department of Commerce from 1998-2002 and senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1995-1997. She was the U.S. State Department’s program officer for Soviet/Russia science and technology affairs from 1989-1994. Before joining the State Department, Cathy held research positions at the Library of Congress, Rand Corporation and Presearch, Incorporated.
Cathy has a Master’s degree from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and a B.S. from Georgetown University. She serves on the External Advisory Board, Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs; and the Advisory Committee, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). She is a Fellow of the AAAS.
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BiographyMs. Noam Dan
Budget Division, Israel Ministry of FinanceNoam Dan is currently the head of R&D and the Higher Education team at the Budget Department of the Ministry of Finance. She led the import liberalization program approved in the State Budget Law 2021-2022. Previously, Noam was an economist for the Israeli Antitrust Authority. Noam earned her BA in Economics and Political Science with highest distinction from Tel Aviv University and she holds a Master’s degree in Financial Economics.
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BiographyProf. Avi Domb
Israel Ministry of Innovation, Science and TechnologyProfessor Abraham (Avi) J. Domb is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Biopolymers at the School of Pharmacy in the Faculty of Medicine, and of Forensic Sciences at the Faculty of Law, both at the Hebrew University.
Professor Domb earned B.Sc. degrees in Chemistry, Pharmaceutics and Law. He also obtained Diplomas in Business Management and Textile Science and he received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Hebrew University. He did postdoctoral training at Syntex Research, MIT and Harvard University.
From 1988-1991, Prof. Domb served as the R&D director at Nova Pharmaceuticals, Baltimore, USA. In 1991 he joined the faculty at the Hebrew University. From 2007-2012 he headed the Division of Forensic Science at the Israel Police. He served as President of the College of Engineering from 2014-2016, and as the head of the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University from 2018-2021. Since 2021, Prof. Domb has been serving as the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Innovation, Science & Technology.
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BiographyDr. Joshua Gordon, U.S.A
Director, U.S. National Institute of Mental HealthDr. Gordon received his MD/PhD degree at the University of California, San Francisco and completed his Psychiatry residency and research fellowship at Columbia University. He joined the Columbia faculty in 2004 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry where he conducted research, taught residents, and maintained a general psychiatry practice. In September of 2016, he became the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
Dr. Gordon’s research focuses on the analysis of neural activity in mice carrying mutations of relevance to psychiatric disease. His lab studies genetic models of these diseases from an integrative neuroscience perspective, focused on understanding how a given disease mutation leads to a behavioral phenotype across multiple levels of analysis. To this end, he employs a range of systems neuroscience techniques, including in vivo anesthetized and awake behaving recordings and optogenetics, which is the use of light to control neural activity. His work has direct relevance to schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and depression.
Dr. Gordon’s work has been recognized by several prestigious awards, including the The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation – NARSAD Young Investigator Award, the Rising Star Award from the International Mental Health Research Organization, the A.E. Bennett Research Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and the Daniel H. Efron Research Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
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BiographyProf. Peter Hotez, U.S.A.
Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology, Baylor College of MedicinePeter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics. He is also University Professor at Baylor University, and Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
Dr. Hotez is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development. As head of the Texas Children’s CVD, he leads the only product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, and Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS, diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide. In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative he co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people.
He obtained his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics from Yale University in 1980 (phi beta kappa), followed by a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1986, and an M.D. from Weil Cornell Medical College in 1987. Dr. Hotez has authored more than 400 original papers and is the author of the acclaimed Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press) and the recently released Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth (Johns Hopkins University Press).
Dr. Hotez served previously as President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and he is founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2011 he was awarded the Abraham Horwitz Award for Excellence in Leadership in Inter-American Health by the Pan American Health Organization of the WHO. In 2014-16 he served in the Obama Administration as US Envoy, focusing on vaccine diplomacy initiatives between the US Government and countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2018 he was appointed by the US State Department to serve on the Board of Governors for the US Israel Binational Science Foundation, and he received the Sackler Award in Sustained Leadership from ResearchAmerica!
In 2016, Prof. Hotez emerged as a major national thought leader on the Zika epidemic in the Western Hemisphere and globally. He was among the first to predict Zika’s emergence in the US and is called upon frequently to testify before US Congress, and served on infectious disease task forces for two consecutive Texas Governors. For these efforts in 2017 he was named by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the 34 most influential people in health care.
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BiographyDr. Kendra Sharp, U.S.A.
Head, Office of International Science and Engineering, National Science FoundationDr. Kendra Sharp is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU), currently on loan to the U.S. National Science Foundation where she has been serving as the Head of the Office of International Science and Engineering since February 2021. Previously, at OSU, she served as Senior Advisor for Global Affairs, where she provided leadership for the development and implementation of strategic initiatives in internationalization and global engagement. She was also an Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development. She founded OSU’s Humanitarian Engineering Program, and was named the Richard and Gretchen Evans Professor of Humanitarian Engineering.
She believes deeply in the value of interdisciplinary education and research, and using engineering and technology for positive social impact. She has extensive international research and teaching experience in the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Thailand. She is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering. Recent awards include an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the OSU College of Engineering’s Faculty Mentoring Award, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering’s Edwin F. Church Medal, and OSU’s International Service Award. She was also an American Association for the Advancement of Science/American Institute of Physics Congressional Science Fellow in the U.S. Senate in 2001.
Dr. Sharp received her Ph.D. and B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Master’s degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of California-Berkeley.
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BiographyProf. Alex Lubotzky
Professor of Mathematics at Weizmann Institute and Weil Professor of Mathematics at the Hebrew UniversityProf. Alex Lubotzky is a mathematician working mainly in group theory and its connections
with number theory, geometry, combinatorics and computer science. He has
published over 160 papers, 1 textbook, 3 research books (two of which received the
Ferran Sunyer I Balaguer Prize – an international prize for research books).He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2014), the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005) and the Hungarian Academy of
Science (2022). He has received a number of awards: the Erdos Prize (1990), the
Rothschild Prize (2002), the Israel Prize (2018) and an honorary degree from the
University of Chicago (2006). He has received ERC advanced grants three times
(2009-2014, 2015-2020, 2021-2026).He served on various Israeli and international committees, was a member of the
Israeli parliament (Knesset) 1996-1999, and the president of the Israeli Mathematical
Union (2019-2020).