Real estate magnate and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman has announced a scholarship program to pay for American graduate students in the sciences to study in Israel. The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program will provide more than $100 million in scholarships over the next 20 years, Zuckerman said. It will provide funding for American graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to study at Israeli universities. They include Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. "At a time when collaboration is essential to advanced scientific research, this program gives the next generations of leading American and Israeli academics the ability to work together on cutting-edge research in ways that stand to benefit their fields for years to come," Zuckerman said as he announced the initiative Monday at the Harvard Club of New York City. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who attended the event, said, "By helping some of America's best and brightest students work and learn alongside leading researchers in Israel, this program gives us a new model for cooperation and partnership that will ultimately better society as a whole." Nobel laureates Richard Axel, Aaron Ciechanover, Eric Kandal and Ada Yonath also attended the news conference. In a video message, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "This project will help bring back home some of Israel's most brilliant sons and daughters, allow them to advance their own careers here and in so doing contribute to Israel's growing scientific excellence; it will also enable some of America's brightest young scientists to conduct their research in Israel." Zuckerman is the publisher of the Daily News of New York and U.S. News & World Report and the chairman of Boston Properties.
