MIT Professor Eran Ben-Joseph, head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has joined the MIT-Israel Program’s current faculty director, Christine Ortiz, the Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, as the program’s co-director. “I look forward to working alongside Professor Ortiz and the great team of MIT-Israel to continue expand what is already an extraordinary program,” he says. A native of Israel and former visiting lecturer at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Ben-Joseph has been involved in MIT’s Israel relations for years — and specifically with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) MIT-Israel program since it formal launch in 2007. “Despite its size and many geopolitical constraints,” says Ben-Joseph, “Israel has emerged in the last decades as a global leader in innovation and technology.”
Working closely with MIT-Israel Managing Director David Dolev, Ben-Joseph has helped set up internships in Israel for MIT School of Architecture and Planning students; served on the MIT-Israel Seed Fund selection board; collaborated on practice-based research in Ashdod; and facilitated student presentations at the MIT Better World (Tel Aviv) event. “MISTI is very pleased that Eran will join MIT-Israel after nearly a decade of informal involvement,” says Chappell Lawson, associate professor of political science and faculty director of MISTI. “He has exactly the qualities that MISTI hopes for among its faculty directors: a commitment to our students, abiding attachment to his program's country, and great ideas on how to sustain a highly successful initiative.”
This past year, MIT-Israel sent over 100 MIT undergrads and graduate students to Israel to intern, teach, and research in the “Startup Nation.” Through the MIT-Israel Seed Funds, nine faculty projects were funded in collaboration with peers in Israel. Now in its tenth year at MIT, the program maintains relationships with more than 100 host institutions.
MISTI — MIT’s pioneering international education program — is comprised of over 20 location-specific programs, each of which is led by one or more senior members of the MIT faculty who set the strategic direction for the program and ensure its educational quality. A program at the Center for International Studies (CIS) in MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), MISTI matches students with hands-on projects across the world and facilitates international faculty collaborations.
