Staff Mobility

On 15-22.9.2024, I traveled to the University of Basel in Switzerland to the Institute for Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine.
IBMB: https://ibmb.unibas.ch/en/home/

The hosting faculty member was Dr. Tenzin Wangmo, a senior researcher and coordinator of the doctoral program at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel.

Goals:
Examining the feasibility of building an international course/workshop on bioethics and health policy – in Israel and worldwide, and expanding international connections.
During the meetings, I proposed hosting a mutual course for enrichment and learning in the fields of health policy.

Course of the stay:
17.9.24 Meeting with Dr. Tenzin Wangmo, University of Basel, on collaboration of courses from the University of Basel
17.9.24 Joining a departmental seminar at the University of Basel and networking with faculty members of the institute and with a visiting researcher: Dr. Tim Rojek from the University of Münster, Germany.
18.9.24 Meeting with Prof. Dr. Alfred Bodenheimer, University of Basel
https://jewishstudies.unibas.ch/de/personen/alfred-bodenheimer/projekte/
19.9.24 Giving a faculty seminar lecture at the University of Basel on the topic:
Ethical Aspects of Using AI in Optimizing Fertility Treatments
19.9.24 Meeting with Nathalie Nasser, a research student at the institute, regarding research collaboration
20.9.24 Meeting at the University of Zurich with Dr. Roberto Andorno on collaboration of courses from the University of Zurich.
https://www.ibme.uzh.ch/en/Biomedical-Ethics/Team/Research-Fellows/Roberto-Andorno.html
From a practical point of view, it was agreed that we would hold a meeting on promoting a concrete course. I talked with Gila about the possibility of promoting an international course that I will study in the coming year.
I thank you for this special opportunity to visit another academic institution and meet the faculty members.
I hope I can advance things for the benefit of our college and our students.
Dr. Orit Golan

On May 2024, I traveled to New York for a busy but fascinating journey.
During my stay in the city, I lectured on two courses for students at Hofstra University in New York. The feedback was good, and the meeting was interesting for both sides and left an opening for future teaching as a guest lecturer at the university.
This university is also known for excellent student services, and I held a meeting with a representative of the Dean of Students where I learned about other initiatives and actions worth adopting here.
I also held meetings with four researchers in my common fields of research. Beyond discussing research partnerships, two of them sowed interest in taking part of future college exchange projects or teaching summer college courses.
The meetings with them, with the students, and a few other “hallway meetings” that I had the opportunity to have, presented a significant opportunity to discuss and explain the current situation in Israel. There is a lot of laconic and superficial knowledge even among educated people who are sympathetic to Israel, and the meetings were important in this sense as well. New York today is not an easy place to stay, the riots on campuses are felt in the city and it was fascinating to stay there especially during this period.
I am positive this trip will lead to continuous and fruitful collaborations.

During my stay in Boston 15.9.24- 30.9.24, I visited and gave lectures at three different institutes, Harvard Medical School (Jen Center for Primary Care, Brigham & Women Hospital), Healthcare Administration-Sawyer School of Business, Suffolk University, and RAND- Research and Development institute at Park avenue- Boston. A detailed plan of my visit is elaborated in the Hebrew section above.
During my trip I met with several researchers to develop two main goals. First, I started working with Professor Gordon Schiff on a project funded by AHRQ, titled: “Improving Cancer Diagnosis (ICDx): Learning from Patients Experiencing Cancer Diagnosis Delays”. Professor Schiff is the supervisor of my postdoctoral fellowship (2019-2021). He is known as an expert in the field of quality of diagnosis and patient safety. We have worked on ways to best communicate diagnostic uncertainty. Our work was published in Harvard press was in September in addition to previous publications. Due to our mutual interest in types of communication with patients, during this visit, I attended his clinic at the Jen Center, Brigham and Women Hospital. My presence was important for developing future research ideas, particularly since he is participating in a pilot regarding AI virtual scribes.
Additionally, we met with the full ICDx research team. Since this project is mainly based on qualitative methods and I am the main consultant of the qualitative analysis, it was important to meet and discuss ongoing and future plans with the team.
Also, I met and worked with Professor Erin Sullivan from Healthcare Administration-Sawyer School of Business, Suffolk University, affiliated as well with Harvard Medical School, on applying to the NSF-BSF Research grant. We are thinking to apply for next year-round. We aim to meet and consult with Professor Mark Linzer, a well-known clinician burnout expert. Dr Sullivan is known for her work in teams in healthcare, and she might consider visiting the Max Yezrael College depending on the situation in Israel.
Further, I met with Shira Fischer MD, from RAND institute and discussed applying for a grant. She has also showed interest in visiting Max Yezrael College.
I gave three lectures during my visit. The first took place at RAND, “Communicating across the divide in healthcare settings: culture, gender, and patient-provider dynamics”. Researchers from the institute joined in person and virtually. The second was at Healthcare Administration-Sawyer School of Business, Suffolk University for master’s class, titled: “Teamwork and Communicational divide among healthcare staff members in primary care.” The third was at Harvard Medical School, General Internal Medicine Center, titled: “The Quest for a High -Quality Diagnosis: Measuring and Comparing Clinical Encounters and Clinical Documentation.” It was targeted to clinicians and researchers who joined in person and virtually.

In light of a collaboration that began in 2023, Prof. Barbara Thies invited Dr. Michal Raz and Dr. Oriana Abboud Armaly to visit the Technical University of Braunschweig, Institute of Educational Psychology, Germany on August 2024.

The researchers also met with faculty members and PhD candidates at two other universities in Germany:

• MSH – Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and Medical School Hamburg
• Technical University of Berlin

The visit included lectures to faculty members and PhD students which presented research areas and methodologies that are relevant to potential future collaborative research. In addition, the researchers were exposed to the research methods, tools, and practices used by the host faculty members and explored the possibility of incorporating these into future research. During their stay, opportunities for further collaboration were discussed, as well as concrete proposals for future research in areas of interest to researchers from both Israel and Germany.

The researchers are currently formulating a research proposal that will enable them to continue their joint activities in the future.

On May 2024, I traveled to Thessaloniki, Greece to meet with colleagues, in the aim of creating future academic collaborations.
Dr. Dimitrios Theofanidis, a senior Nursing staff member in the International Hellenic University, was my very attentive and generous host.
He arranged for meetings with colleagues from the university and the local hospital (HEPA), as well as lectures I gave to undergraduate and graduate students and meeting the local Jewish community.
Meetings with the students were very interesting, we discussed the curriculums and the differences between our countries when it comes to the healthcare systems.
In HEPA I had the opportunity to discuss administrative and medical issues within the hospital and the community, share how we work in Israel and learn how things are done in Greece.
Many collaboration options were discussed during my week in Greece: students and staff mobility, joined research, joined online courses, a heabrew translation of a Greek book and more.

August 21 – September 15, 2024

I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the International Office for supporting this important trip. The journey played a pivotal role in strengthening my international professional connections and enhancing my academic reputation as a researcher. Below is a summary of the key visits and activities during the trip:

August 27-30: The University of South Carolina  

1. I met with my host, Prof. Shannon Bowen, from the College of Information and Communication, to discuss our collaboration on the topic of AI and ethical challenges in PR. We reviewed my research proposal that won the Berger Research Award, and Prof. Bowen invited me, as the recipient of the award, to present my study at the upcoming conclave of the Global Strategic Communication Consortium in May 2025 in Sardinia (https://gscc-conclave.weebly.com/2025-conclave.html)
2. I delivered a research talk to faculty members of the College of Information and Communication titled: “Trust and Adoption: How AI Technology is Perceived and Used by Content Consumers and Producers” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GArQipaf1I).
3. I taught a class in Dr. Robertson’s Crisis Communication course for undergraduate students, titled: “AI and its Impact on the Field of PR.”  
4. I taught a graduate class in Dr. Bowen’s PR Management course, titled: “AI and its Impact on the PR Industry and Research.”  
5. Dr. Taylor Wen, from the College of Information and Communication, gave me a tour of the Bio Lab, which integrates virtual reality (VR) with biological parameters in communication research. As the head of the Marketing Communication track at YVC, this tour provided me with ideas for building a similar VR lab in our department.  

September 3-7: The University of Maryland  

1. I met with my host, Prof. Ganga Dhanesh, from the Department of Communication in the College of Arts & Humanities, for several working meetings to discuss our ongoing collaborations:  
2. We brainstormed ideas for two separate book chapters, each of which we are contributing to a volume on culture and crisis communication, edited by Prof. Sriramesh Krishnamurthy from the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado, USA.  
3. We discussed and planned the continuation of our book project titled “Intercultural Public Relations: Insights from the Middle East” (Routledge), which we aim to complete by the end of December 2024.  
4. We explored potential topics for future grant proposals.  
5. We discussed submitting a joint panel proposal for the upcoming International Communication Association (ICA) conference in Denver, USA.  
6. I delivered a research talk to PhD students and faculty members from the College of Information and Communication, titled: “Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on the Public Relations Field and Content Creation.”

September 11-14: The European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) Annual Congress, The University of Bucharest, Romania 

1. I presented a joint research project co-authored with Dr. Amit Gur, focusing on patients’ perceptions and their willingness to adopt new healthcare technologies based on their trust in media sources. The conference provided valuable networking opportunities with European scholars in strategic and health communication, further expanding my professional network.

As a direct result of this trip, I am now collaborating with international colleagues on several research initiatives. This trip has significantly contributed to both my academic development and the establishment of new, productive research partnerships. 

Thank you again for your support,

Best regards,

Dr. Ruth Avidar

In June 2025, an international week took place at BSU University in Batumi, Georgia, and representatives from the International Office at Yezreel Valley College were invited to participate.
Representatives from Greece, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Malta also participated.
The week included an in-depth introduction of the hosting institution and the other participating institutions, as well as academic and cultural tours in Batumi and its surroundings. The BSU hospitality throughout the week was wonderful and opened important opportunities to establish connections with new universities. Throughout this week, we acquired new tools for creating international collaborations, enjoyed deep conversations, exchanged ideas, and of course, had plenty of good food.
I was happy and honored to represent the college and Israel in these meetings, and I am sure that wonderful collaborations will emerge from them that will advance all partners.

Political Science and Public Management and Policy
30/04-08/05, Potsdam University, Germany 

My collaboration with the Political Science department team from Germany began approximately two years ago. Together with the Head of the School of Governance at the University of Potsdam (Prof. Sabine Kuhlman) and her team, in partnership with a Professor from the University of Haifa, we decided to establish research collaboration and even considered conducting a research workshop in Israel. In October 2023, we submitted an initial research proposal to the major DIP Foundation, which was unfortunately not accepted. Due to the war that began at that time, we postponed the execution of the workshop in Israel. However, we revived our connection approximately eight months ago to engage in joint planning for submitting a research proposal to GIF and continued planning for conducting a workshop for researchers. The meetings were conducted via Zoom, and progress was extremely slow. We had planned to meet at a joint conference last year, but due to the current situation, I was unable to travel to Oslo. Therefore, we decided that face-to-face meetings in Potsdam could advance us toward our objectives of introducing myself to the team of doctoral students and postdocs through the lecture I delivered, meeting with the Head of the School of Governance and her team to write the research proposal, meeting with the Head of the Institute for Local Government to develop plans for potential collaborative activities, and conducting a working session on building the joint workshop in Germany. It became clear that my German colleagues are not prepared to travel to Israel soon. I must emphasize that the face-to-face meetings revealed important aspects that were not discussed in our Zoom meetings and resolved issues that had remained unresolved previously. Additionally, this visit provided me with the opportunity to meet with a colleague, a Professor and Head of the School of Political Science at the Freie University of Berlin (Prof. Sabine Kropp), who came specifically to meet with me and suggested reaching out to the international unit for institutional collaboration

As part of the grant, I participated in a conference on May 20-22, 2025 – the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare (IHI) – to which I was invited by two conference organizers, Don Berwick and Selina Stephen, to discuss my recent study (focused on moral injury of healthcare staff of minority populations during crises). In addition to the lecture, I had two work meetings with Dr. Stephen and Dr. Berwick for the purpose of developing collaboration between the two institutions. Dr. Berwick is a well-known figure in the field of patient safety and founder of the IHI institute and forum, which offers courses for medical teams in English and some in Arabic. The work meeting with him was important to consider a joint course since he expressed interest and support for the student population in our department at the college during an initial introductory meeting at the beginning of January this year. The IHI forum offers a wide variety of courses designed for healthcare system professionals, and during the meeting with Berwick, I suggested a course designed for graduate level for healthcare staff. Dr. Berwick expressed great interest in helping develop this course and we plan to meet in Boston, this August. In addition, Don Berwick introduced me to several key figures for future collaborations, one of them Dr James Mountford, is the Editor-in-Chief, at Journal of BMJ Leader. He invited me to contribute a piece to BMJ Leader (I can share the email if needed). Further, during networking I met researchers from Denmark, particularly, Marie Storkholm. Due to similar research interests regarding burnout and moral injury of healthcare staff, we decided to meet and discuss future joint work.

In April 2025, I visited the Beckett Leeds University, where I met Professor Neelu Seetaram, Dr Chen Zheng and Dr Laura Davies to discuss potential future research.
In addition, I gave a seminar to faculty and Ph.D. students.
The seminar title was: Exploring frontiers: A research showcase

 

0n May 2025 Prof. Shiran Bord and Dr. Carmit Satran took part in the International Week at the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki, Greece.
They were invited by Dr. Dimitrios Theofanidis and Dr. Panagiotis Ksenanidis to participate in this international collaboration initiative, which brought together faculty members from 25 countries worldwide. The visit aimed to strengthen international partnerships, explore research collaboration opportunities, and develop joint academic programs between the Nursing Department at Yezreel Valley College and the International Hellenic University.
During the International Week they took part in several academic activities:

• Meetings with faculty members from the Nursing Department at the International Hellenic University.
• Introduction of our Nursing Science Department and college in the International Week.
• Participation in International Week activities and networking sessions with international academic staff.
• Meetings with nursing department academic staff members from various universities participating in the International Week to explore joint teaching and research opportunities, especially from Romania, North Macedonia, Poland and Thailand.
• Meetings with the International Office staff to discuss institutional collaboration opportunities.

We are sure these activities will lead to many exciting future collaborations.
Prof. Shiran Bord
Health Management Department
Dr. Carmit Satran
Nursing Science Department
  

Between 13–22 July 2025, Dr. Inbal Halevy Hochwald and Dr. Gila Yakov visited two leading research centers in the United Kingdom specializing in palliative care:

The Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre, University of Hull

Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, University College London

The visit was preceded by several preparatory meetings (in-person and online) with Prof. Jonathan Koffman, which helped define aims and strengthen professional ties.
The main goal was to explore collaborative opportunities, learn from advanced research practices in palliative care, and present Israeli perspectives and research on aging and end-of-life care.

Despite the ongoing state of conflict in which we currently live, we were warmly welcomed and generously engaged in professional collaboration. Without a doubt, careful preparation in the months preceding the visit proved itself.

The timing of the visit was critical in shaping the Research Center for Aging and End-of-Life Care that we lead. We established a foundation for research collaborations in the field of palliative and end-of-life care, and we learned about the importance of implementing end-of-life policies within their social and legal context. This constitutes a broad field for comparative studies between Israel and the UK.

On July, 2025 Dr. Haimi, from the Health System Management Department, traveled to the School of health in the Polytechnic University of Porto (P.PORTO), Portugal.

The visit focused on establishing a comprehensive collaborative partnership in
telemedicine and digital health innovation between Max Stern Yezreel Valley
Academic College and the Polytechnic University of Porto. The primary objective was
to combine institutional expertise and resources to advance healthcare technology
research and education, with particular emphasis on developing sustainable long term collaboration frameworks.

During the visit, meetings were held with professionals and leading researchers in the fields of telemedicine and digital health, an agreement was reached on mutual information sharing, and thinking and research teams were formed.
Additionally, a framework for faculty exchanges and the holding of joint seminars using academic technologies were examined.

On July, 2025, Dr Rinat Lifshitz, from the Gerontology department at YVC, visited the Faculty of Social Work in the department Social Management at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Heidenheim, Germany.

The visit was planned and coordinated in advance with Dr. Roman Grinblat and Dr. Olga Lange. The advance planning proved to be highly effective, both in adhering to the schedule and in managing the joint lectures. Roman also created a WhatsApp group for the three of us, which allowed us to coordinate meetings throughout the day and update each other on any necessary changes.

The visit included lectures and workshops with students from two very different departments, as well as with two lecturers specializing in different fields.
In addition, there was a meeting with the Dean and with the International Relations Unit at the institution. Other meetings were informal but helped establish potential connections for maintaining future contact.

Overall, the visit was very positive. Everyone she met was warm and eager to collaborate with the college and with Israel. Several important ideas were raised for continuing academic and research collaborations, as well as initiatives related to teaching and student exchanges.

On September 2025, I participated in a Job Shadowing program at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
The visit focused on:
• Gaining insight into digital pedagogy, faculty development, and AI integration in higher education.
• Sharing Israel’s national perspective and YVC’s CTL initiatives.
• Building professional connections to develop long-term institutional partnerships.
This program combined structured discussions, shadowing of specialized units, and cultural exchange activities, allowing for a rich understanding of RUB’s institutional approach to academic innovation. During my visit I engaged with the CTL leadership and staff to explore their organizational structure, teaching support strategies, and technological initiatives.
Several future collaborations were discussed:.
• Exploring joint virtual workshops on AI, OER, and digital pedagogy for Israeli and German faculty.
• Sharing evaluation methods and professional development frameworks.
• Planning a return visit for RUB staff to YVC for reciprocal shadowing and collaboration.