Every week, Daniella Nistenpover sits down in a lecture hall for one class in neurophysiology and another in biological processes, and sees a sea of women.
That’s not the case when the 22-year-old takes courses in the theory of electrical circuits or differential equations at the predominantly male Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. She says it’s evidence that she’s picked the right career.
“It makes you feel that in the life-sciences field, a woman can make a mark,” says Nistenpover, a bio-medical engineering major at the university in Haifa who plans to work in bio-mechanics or bio-materials research.
Women outnumber men in biology and related sciences in higher education in Israel. That could give women an advantage as the government and private investors put increasing amounts of money into the life-sciences industry, one of the country’s fastest growing sectors, collecting the most venture capital money in the first half of this year.
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While most high-tech employees are male, women comprise 60 percent to 70 percent of the biotechnology workforce, according to Nisha Group, a recruiting firm based near Tel Aviv.
Still, men dominate upper management. Women hold about 13 percent of chief executive officer positions in companies in the Tel Aviv Biomed index and less than 5 percent in the Tel Aviv Technology index, according to data analyzed by Bloomberg.
That’s destined to change in biotech, says Ora Dar, head of the life sciences sector at the Office of the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.
“As this field matures, you are going to see women increasingly taking executive positions,” says Dar, whose team of about 100 evaluators, who decide what projects and incubators to finance with taxpayer money, is more than 70 percent female. “It’s a matter of experience.”
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More women than men earn science degrees in Israel, according to Lizi Shoov London, partner and managing director of the Biomedical and Cleantech division at Nisha Group outside Tel Aviv. About 58 percent of biology doctorate degrees awarded in 2010 were to women, a study by Israel’s Council for Higher Education found. That compares to women earning 44 percent of equivalent degrees in the U.S., according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Must only apply to Jewish women, since we are talking about “Apartheid” Israel. Right?
Metallo-Therapy Ltd., which is developing a new method for cancer diagnosis by delivering nano-liposomes to tumor cells, recently received a $4 million investment from Moshe Arkin, former CEO of Agis Industries Ltd. and Perrigo Co. (PRGO)’s vice chairman. Amal Ayoub, Metallo-Therapy’s founder and CEO, says she thinks one reason is that she’s female — and Arab.
‘‘Being an Arab woman was actually an advantage,” says Ayoub, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering form Ben Gurion University. “It got Arkin’s attention.”
In a move that has prompted a demand for a UN investigation by Iran’s most celebrated human rights campaigner, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be “single gender” and effectively exclusive to men.
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Under the new policy, women undergraduates will be excluded from a broad range of studies in some of the country’s leading institutions, including English literature, English translation, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and business management.
The Oil Industry University, which has several campuses across the country, says it will no longer accept female students at all, citing a lack of employer demand. Isfahan University provided a similar rationale for excluding women from its mining engineering degree, claiming 98% of female graduates ended up jobless.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
