Celebrating Women in Science

As International Women’s Day took place earlier this month, Israeli news site Walla spoke to Prof. Lihi Zelnik-Manor, Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations at the Technion, about the impact of mentorship and leadership in advancing women in academia and technology. Prof. Zelnik-Manor describes Prof. Ayellet Tal as a mentor who profoundly influenced her personal and academic life and brought significant change to the faculty, the Technion, and Israeli academia as a whole.

“Ayellet was the second-ever female faculty member in the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and I was the fifth. When I joined the Faculty, she set up a weekly meeting with me to support me on this new path – not only in the narrow academic sense. To this day, 18 years later, I still consult with her on critical decisions. If we are talking about ‘paying it forward,’ she is my role model, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to support female students and young faculty members as she supported me. I mentored young female Ph.D. students during my postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology, and today, I continue to do so both informally and in my role as co-chair of the Schmidt Foundation Committee, which supports female researchers in mathematics and computer science.”

“Ayellet paved the way for thousands of women at the faculty level, at the Technion, and nationwide. She initiated and led the ‘Electricity Flows Through Your Hands’ program, which invited outstanding high school girls to the faculty. This model later inspired the Technion-wide TechWomen initiative. She also spearheaded a significant diversity effort by creating the role of Faculty Diversity Officer – a position I later took over from her. As a result, while two decades ago, only about 10% of students in the Faculty were women, today, nearly a third of the students are women, and recently, the ninth female faculty member was recruited. Ayellet served as the Technion President’s Advisor on Women in Science and Engineering, preparing a set of recommendations that led to the establishment of the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion role, currently held by Prof. Adi Salzberg. Today, six deans and three members of the Technion’s management are women, and approximately 50% of first-year students are women. On a national level, Ayellet was a founding member of ‘Afik in Academia’ – the Israeli Forum of Female Professors, which works to advance diversity and inclusion across Israeli academic institutions. Ayellet is a true trailblazer who has brought meaningful change to reality and set an example for many women. I am fortunate to be one of them.”

Brief Biography:
Prof. Lihi Zelnik-Manor, a graduate of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, has been a faculty member in the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2007. She also managed Alibaba Group’s R&D center in Israel for nearly three years. In her role as Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations – a position she brings extensive experience from both academia and industry – she leads efforts to expand the impact of Technion research on the country and economy through collaborations with industry.

Taken from the Hebrew article:
Paying It Forward: The Female Leaders Opening Doors for the Next Generation of Israeli High-Tech

Click here to read the full article.