Dr. Nir Sapir - Dept. of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology

Research summary: The Animal Flight Group
"The unique way birds migrate over thousands of kilometers is a fascinating issue that we are exploring in the Animal Flight Laboratory, at the Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology. Our research involves basic and applied science and employs radars, radio and GPS transmitters, and environmental modelling to track migrating animals and investigate the environmental factors that affect their behavior, ecology and evolution at multiple spatial and temporal scales."

Prof. J. H. Chajes - Dept. of Jewish History

Research summary: The Ilanot Project
"The Volkswagon Foundation and Israel Science Foundation supported Ilanot Project is an ambitious and unprecedented attempt to catalogue and describe all kabbalistic cosmological diagrams and to prepare scientific editions of the greatest exemplars. Its database and planned “Maps of God” site are pioneering digital humanities efforts in Israel.  Based at the University of Haifa and working in partnership with the University of Haifa’s Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library, the Ilanot Project also has a longstanding and fruitful cooperation agreement with the National Library of Israel. In recent years, the Ilanot Project has also worked closely with institutions including the British Library, the Columbia University Library, the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, and the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. What are Ilanot? An Ilan, a Hebrew word for “tree,” is an arboreal diagram. Kabbalistic Ilanot (plural) were often arboreal, but the term was often used generically for any diagrammatic visualization of kabbalistic knowledge, regardless of the schemata deployed."