The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) has recently unveiled its roster of individual research grant recipients for the 2024-2025 academic year, spotlighting groundbreaking projects across diverse disciplines. These grants, awarded based on rigorous scientific merit and the innovative quality of research proposals, are instrumental in propelling advancements within exact sciences, technology, life sciences, medicine, humanities, and social sciences. Notably, several distinguished researchers from Reichman University have secured ISF funding, marking a significant boost to their pioneering endeavors that promise to advance intellectual frontiers and societal understanding.
Among the recipients, Dr. Boaz Zik from the Tiomkin School of Economics, in collaboration with Dr. Ran Weksler of the Hebrew University, embarks on an intricate exploration of certification markets through their project “Selling Certification.” Their research dissects the architecture of markets where third parties authenticate the quality of products or participants, a critical function underpinning market trust and efficiency. By leveraging sophisticated mechanism design and information modeling frameworks, their work probes the intersection of market incentives, testing limitations, and profit structures within certification systems. The project illuminates how certification frameworks influence agents’ willingness to invest in quality enhancements and the pivotal role that public oversight may play in rectifying market inefficiencies characterized by adverse selection and moral hazard. This nuanced analysis offers transformative insights into the dynamics of information reliability and trustworthiness within commercial environments, with far-reaching implications for regulatory policies and industry standards.
In another compelling study, Prof. Tsachi Ein-Dor of the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology delves into the elusive construct of psychological resilience in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel. His research endeavors to unravel why certain individuals withstand traumatic adversity more effectively than others by integrating psychological assessments with genetic and epigenetic data. This multi-layered inquiry transcends traditional retrospective methodologies by employing prospective, longitudinal data from the “Alpha Project,” thus capturing real-time biological and psychological responses to trauma. Through deploying expression-based polygenic risk scores and DNA methylation analyses alongside psychological profiling, the investigation seeks to decode the complex interplay between biology and environment in shaping resilience. Its outcomes aim to refine resilience conceptualization as a dynamic, bio-psychosocial phenomenon, potentially informing targeted interventions for trauma-related conditions and broadening our comprehension of human adaptability under duress.
Addressing the escalating imperatives of climate resilience and energy autonomy, Prof. Yael Parag from the School of Sustainability Founded by Israel Corp., ICL & ORL, together with Dr. Tamar Yogev of the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship, focuses on the socio-technical evolution of “energy islands.” These autonomous, isolated energy systems capitalize on declining renewable technology costs to promise sustainable and resilient solutions to global energy challenges. Their research interrogates the multifaceted nature of energy islands, synthesizing technological, infrastructural, regulatory, economic, and social dimensions into a unified analytical framework. By developing innovative paradigms such as the “islandness” index and conducting extensive qualitative and quantitative analyses—including stakeholder interviews and case studies—the project aspires to map the diversity of energy island configurations, understand the drivers behind their adoption, and prognosticate their systemic influences on energy governance and distributive justice. This scholarship positions energy islands not merely as infrastructural constructs but as complex socio-technical ecosystems with transformative potential in a rapidly changing energy landscape.
From the realm of consumer behavior and digital interaction, Dr. Yonat Zwebner and Dr. Moshe Miller of the Arison School of Business investigate the intricate relationship between facial appearance and written expression in their project “From Face to Phrase.” This research uncovers how dual-modality identities—combining images with textual content on online platforms—shape and influence consumer perceptions and engagements. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology that blends human perceptual experiments with advanced machine learning algorithms, their study reveals that both humans and AI systems can discern congruencies between facial cues and linguistic styles, linking these patterns to underlying personality traits and affective states. The implications extend beyond academic theory into practical applications such as targeted marketing, authenticity verification, and consumer trust enhancement, offering novel perspectives on the fusion of visual and textual identity markers in digital ecosystems.
Prof. Shimon Kogan, also of the Arison School of Business, pioneers the integration of artificial intelligence in personality research through his project “AI-Based Personality Extraction: Economic Applications.” This endeavor utilizes cutting-edge AI tools capable of inferring personality traits from a single facial photograph—a stark departure from conventional survey-based methodologies prone to scale and reliability limitations. By correlating AI-derived personality insights with economic behaviors, labor market outcomes, and financial decision-making, the study interrogates the profound extent to which intrinsic traits—often invisible to traditional demographic analyses—govern economic trajectories. The potential to harness AI for large-scale behavioral studies signals a paradigm shift in understanding personality’s role in socioeconomic contexts and opens avenues for personalized interventions and policy formulations.
Highlighting an underexplored dimension of familial labor, Prof. Tamar Saguy of the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology and Dr. Miriam Nechama Yaffe of Tel Aviv University propose a novel conceptualization of the “third shift.” Beyond the widely recognized double burden of paid work and household chores encapsulated as the “second shift,” their research frames the constant mental load of planning, organizing, and managing family logistics as a distinct and persistent cognitive labor. Characterizing this invisible emotional and psychological effort provides a critical lens to examine gendered disparities in unpaid work, as well as its ramifications for well-being, career satisfaction, and relationship quality. This project thereby enriches scholarly dialogues on labor division by integrating mental workload into the discourse, potentially influencing social policy and gender equity initiatives.
In the sphere of marketing and narrative efficacy, Prof. Ron Shahar of the Arison School of Business explores the mechanics of storytelling within advertisements in his project “Sell Me a Story: AI to the Rescue.” By merging deep narrative theory with large-scale AI-driven video analysis, his research unveils how conflict-driven storytelling elements, complemented by psychological mechanisms like curiosity, significantly enhance advertisement success. This pioneering approach not only offers refined tools for measuring narrative impact but also opens new frontiers for automated content analysis, fundamentally reshaping marketing strategies and our understanding of human engagement with stories.
Meanwhile, in the fast-evolving domain of artificial intelligence, Prof. Ariel Shamir of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science advances research on generative vision-language (GenAI) models with his project “Vision-Language Models and Generative-AI for Co-Creation.” While GenAI models have revolutionized content creation across visual arts, literature, and multimodal media, challenges such as navigating output diversity, personalizing creations, and maintaining user control persist. Prof. Shamir’s work seeks to develop refined AI tools that seamlessly support human creativity through dynamic co-creation frameworks, distinguishing between exploratory phases that broaden creative possibilities and definitional phases that hone specific outputs. By deepening AI’s responsiveness and collaboration with human users, this project aspires to transcend present limitations, heralding a new era of synergistic human-AI creative workflows with broad implications for artistic expression, education, and beyond.
Collectively, these ISF-funded projects from Reichman University represent a powerful confluence of innovation, interdisciplinarity, and societal relevance. From the microcosm of individual psychology and personality dynamics to the macro challenges of resilient energy systems and AI-mediated creativity, this new wave of research propels a deeper scientific understanding while addressing urgent contemporary issues. As these academic ventures unfold, they promise to yield transformative knowledge, technological breakthroughs, and actionable insights with the potential to influence both scholarly fields and public policy on a global scale.
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