Change-Makers

Former Chairman of the $14 billion Aramark Corporation, Joseph Neubauer, has a personal story that is as fascinating as his business achievements. He and his wife, Jeanette, a marketing and communications entrepreneur and executive, are corporate and civic leaders whose name precedes them at universities across the US and Israel. At TAU, the Neubauers established a doctoral fellowship fund for Israel’s Arab minority in STEM and a similar faculty recruitment program. Mr. Neubauer, you came alone to the United States from Britishcontrolled Palestine. How did this affect your life’s path?

My parents sent me to live with my aunt and uncle in the US at the age of 14. I barely spoke a word of English. I came here not only to gain a better education, but also to forge a fresh start for the entire family. My first years were not easy, but I was blessed with a number of teachers who invested in me and enabled me to succeed and ultimately achieve a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and a full scholarship to the University of Chicago for my MBA. I believe it is my responsibility and privilege to invest in people in the same way. What lessons from the corporate world do you apply to your philanthropy?

In our philanthropy, we are intent on investing in people and ideas that can achieve a transformational impact that lasts, much as we did in the corporate world.

There are many things we seek to change: inequities in education, violent crime, food insecurity, opportunities for minorities. Within each of these areas, we ask: where will our investment have the greatest impact? It is when you find those points—and the right leaders—that you can begin to change the system.

Jeanette and Joseph Neubauer

By Idit Nirel

The genesis of our investment in Arab doctoral students and faculty occurred during a trip to Israel 10 years ago. We were struck by how diverse undergraduate campuses were becoming, and yet students did not see themselves equally represented among the faculty, particularly in STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In just a single year since we began the fellowship program at Tel Aviv University, we were delighted to see the number of matriculating Arab PhD students in the STEM fields increase by 225%. We are hopeful this kind of momentum can be sustained.

Increasing diversity on academic campuses not only establishes more Arab role models to teach and mentor students who may aspire to high levels in academia and industry, but it also creates more employment opportunities for minorities at the faculty level.

Our first Neubauer Lecturer, Dr. Wasim Huleihel, is a talented young scientist. His credentials make him a paradigm of the type of academic leader we want to bring to TAU.

The full interview appears on TAU’s website: English.tau.ac.il.

By Susan de la Fuente

Dr. Wasim Huleihel is on a mission.

As one of a handful of Arab faculty members at Tel Aviv University and its first Neubauer Lecturer, he says he is well-suited to help minority students succeed in academia.

The 31-year-old is the scion of two high-achieving parents from Beersheva: his father is a professor of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where Huleihel earned his BSc and MSc, and his mother is a teacher-trainer. He thanks them for teaching him to cope with cultural differences from an early age, which helped him integrate successfully into diverse environments.

After completing two post-doctoral years at the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Huleihel joined TAU’s Fleischman Faculty of Engineering in 2020 as a senior lecturer in electrical engineering.

Prior to that he earned a PhD at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, where he investigated relationships between information theory and statistical mechanics. Huleihel has received numerous awards, including the Maof Prize

Dr. Wasim Huleihel

for excellent young faculty and the Advanced Communication Center (ACC) Feder Family Award for outstanding research work in the field of communication technologies.

These achievements led him to be chosen as TAU’s first Neubauer Lecturer, part of the Neubauer Foundation’s Israeli-Arab Academic Career Pathways Initiative, aimed at boosting diversity in the University’s academic community, specifically in STEM.

Huleihel now focuses on the theory of machine learning and highdimensional statistics—prominent, fast-moving fields used in brainimaging research among other areas. In addition, he studies the effect of misinformation in social media, such as fake news disseminated on COVID-19. His research could ultimately lead to faster, cheaper, energy-efficient technologies, and to more secure and reliable social networks.

These days, Huleihel is also busy raising his one-year-old daughter, Sahara, with “my amazing wife, Sana,” herself a researcher at the Technion.

Huleihel praises TAU for many reasons, among them its “extremely strong and well-recognized researchers” and its academic diversity, which provides “a golden opportunity to collaborate with seemingly unrelated researchers in other departments.” Alongside his research, Huleihel strives to encourage talented minority students to pursue graduate studies in engineering and exact sciences. “Though many are extremely well-suited for pursuing advanced degrees, the majority opt for tempting positions in high-tech,” he says. “From my experience, graduate studies can open many doors and play a key role in promoting and advancing Arab society in general. As a faculty member, I have a precious opportunity to change this misconception and will do my utmost to advance this.”

By Lindsey Zemler

“In the most basic sense, I feel like my music is bringing love to the world," says Tom Zalmanov, a student at Tel Aviv University’s BuchmannMehta School of Music and a recipient of the Diana Mary Steyer Scholarship for Excellence in Music Performance.

Zalmanov avows that playing piano has always been a big part of his identity. A child prodigy, he has been playing since age 5 and, by age 8, was performing in concerts and on TV in Israel and abroad.

Today, his undergraduate studies at TAU focus on musical performance, alongside music history and theory. He says that individualized study with piano Professor Emanuel Krasovsky is

the most valuable part of his academic learning; in fact, Zalmanov chose TAU specifically to work with him. Despite his many career accomplishments on paper, Zalmanov believes that eliciting emotion is the most important measure of success. "There is such great music that has already been written and when I perform it, I am the vessel that delivers it to the audience, making the world a more beautiful place,” he says. “There is no greater pleasure than coming offstage and being thanked by even just one member of the audience who has felt a moment of joy or a deep emotion. It makes it all worth it.”

"The Steyer Scholarship gives me peace of mind, allowing me to fully invest myself in learning performance arts," continues Zalmanov. The scholarship was especially meaningful when coronavirus restrictions eliminated work opportunities for performing artists, as venues were shut down, he adds.

Receiving a scholarship that supports young musicians and the field of music is heartwarming for him because it shows that other people believe in the power of music the way he does, he adds.

Helen Steyer, who launched the Steyer Scholarship Fund for Excellence in Music Performance at TAU with her brother Tommy Steyer in 2017, shares Zalmanov’s passion for music: “if a young person possesses the gift of making music, they can bring incredible beauty into the world, especially during troubled and difficult times.” The Steyers established the Music Fund in memory of their late mother, Diana Mary, a talented musician.

She continues: “Tom's resume sounds like that of an experienced professional. His dedication, hard work and ambition to reach even higher levels will no doubt bring great success. We are proud that a student with his qualifications was chosen for the Steyer Scholarship.” Helen says.

The scholarship, which provides Zalmanov with support for the duration of his bachelor’s degree, requires recipients to give back to their communities. For a period, Zalmanov performed weekly at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center–Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. "It feels very good to make people who are in a difficult situation feel better," he says. Ripple Effect

Indeed, the idea of giving back to the community is a pillar of the Steyers’ values.

“Having parents who survived a horror like the Holocaust, we were raised with the idea of being grateful, appreciating everything we had and making sure other people got the help they needed,” says Helen. “Growing up in Venezuela, Tommy and I saw extreme poverty, hunger and despair, so we were very aware of suffering and socioeconomic marginalization, even as young children.

“Our parents made it clear to us that everyone has an obligation to help others, especially those who are ‘voiceless’: the hungry, poor, disabled, uneducated and others who might be considered invisible,” she explains. The Steyer siblings are longtime, second-generation supporters of TAU and have served as Governors since 1990. TAU awarded them both honorary doctorates in 2012. Their father Stanley, for whom TAU’s Stanley Steyer School of Health Professions is named, received an honorary doctorate in 1993. “We hope that when someone is helped by our gift, they will remember it and in turn help others. This creates a ripple effect,” says Helen. “It is a beautiful way of continuing the Tom Zalmanov legacy of our parents.” For Zalmanov, who is nearing graduation, his time at TAU is far from over. He plans to pursue a master's degree at the Buchmann-Mehta School. His long-term dream is to build his career as a musician, performing on stage and teaching music, he says. "All I want is to make a living doing what I love and to continue to move people."

Siblings Helen Steyer and Tommy Steyer at TAU