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 members of the Board for 2023-2024:
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BiographyDr. Sarah Staton, U.S.A. - Chair
U.S. Department of StateSarah Staton leads international science and technology cooperation efforts spanning fusion, inclusive science, quantum information science, and innovation commercialization. Previously, Sarah led the flagship Global Innovation through Science and Technology Initiative where she helped to build vibrant science, technology, and innovation entrepreneurial ecosystems in high impact economies around the world powered by public-private partnerships with groups such as Amazon, Microsoft, and the Kauffman Foundation. Sarah is focused on empowering science and technology innovators globally, especially women and underrepresented groups. She transitioned into the federal service through the American Association for the Advancement of Science Policy Fellowship. Previously, Sarah was a National Research Council Post-doctoral Fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where her work on disease detection utilizing combined optical-electrokinetic chromatography received the Edison Patent Award.
She earned her Ph.D. in bioanalytical chemistry from Arizona State University and has spearheaded multiple international research efforts, including developing tools to assess Amazonian environmental health during her Fulbright and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships in Ecuador.
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BiographyProf. Abraham (Avi) Israeli, Israel - Vice-Chair
Chief Scientist, Ministry of Health; Hebrew University - Hadassah School of Public HealthProfessor Abraham (Avi) Israeli is the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Health. He is also Head of the Department of Health Policy, Health Care Management and Health Economics at the Hebrew University – Hadassah Faculty of Medicine. Prior to this he was the Director General of the Israel Ministry of Health (2003-2009) and the Director – General of Hadassah Medical Organization (1998 -2001).
He holds the Chair of Dr. Julien Rozan Professorship of Family Medicine and Health Promotion at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem (since 1996) and teaches there regularly.
Professor Israeli chaired the national committee to update the Israeli national standard basket of health services, and served on several blue ribbon panels related to health policy in Israel.
Professor Israeli received his medical degree and his master in public health from the Hadassah – Hebrew University Medical School. He completed residencies in Internal Medicine and in Health Care Management at Hadassah University Hospital and has certification in both specialties. He received his Master’s Degree from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, Boston.
His scientific activities are related to applied, methodological and theoretical research in the fields of health policy, health care management, and the epidemiological, economic, social and cultural basis for decision-making.
His publications deal with translation of academic knowledge and inputs from the field into policy setting and decision-making processes.
Two additional key research foci are rationing / priority setting and comparative health care systems.
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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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BiographyProf. Howard Cedar, Israel
School of Medicine, Hebrew University; Member, Israel Academy of ScienceDr. Howard Cedar studied mathematics at M.I.T. and then received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from N.Y.U. In 1973 he immigrated to Israel and took up a position as Professor of Molecular Biology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he has remained ever since. Over the past 30 years his laboratory together with that of Prof. Aharon Razin have pioneered in the study of DNA methylation. These discoveries help explain how genes are regulated and have lead to better understanding of human development and the molecular basis of many diseases. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1999, is an elected member of EMBO since 1983 and became a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences in 2002. He has received the Wolf Prize in Medicine (2008), the Emet Prize (2009) and the Gairdner International Award (2011).
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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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BiographyProfessor Yoseph A. Mekori
Chair of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israeli Council for Higher EducationProfessor 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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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.