UCI & Israeli Initiative
The UC Irvine/Israeli Scholar Exchange Endowment for Engineering Science program supports research activities, international collaborations and educational activities with Israeli universities, including Tel Aviv University, The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Ben Gurion University and Hebrew University. The program, established in 2007 with a $2 million endowment from the Samueli Foundation, seeks to build bridges between UC Irvine engineers and their Israeli counterparts and solidify the Samueli School’s role as a global leader among engineering schools.
To date, the exchange program has supported six international engineering conferences. The annual conferences, which rotate between UCI and Israel, each feature an area of emerging technology.
Communications 2025, Irvine, USA, 2012
https://communications2025.eng.uci.edu
International Medical Innovation Technology 2025, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2013
https://imit2025.eng.uci.edu
Engineering Sustainability 2025, Irvine, USA, 2014
https://es2025.eng.uci.edu
Internet of Things 2025, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2015
https://iot2025.eng.uci.edu
Functional and Nanomaterials 2025, Irvine, USA, 2016
https://fun2025.eng.uci.edu
Transforming Innovation Through Artificial Intelligence 2025, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2018
https://int2025.eng.uci.edu
The funds also support the exchanges of visiting scholars – UCI Samueli School faculty who travel to Israel to present research findings and initiate collaborations, and Israeli faculty who travel to Irvine for the same reason. Additionally, the program supports both Samueli School and Israeli graduate students who seek to extend their education by studying in each other’s countries. Tel Aviv University has sent outstanding undergraduate students to conduct research under UCI faculty mentors. Upon launching the program, Henry Samueli said his hope was that it would “build new bridges between the engineering industry and the world’s great research universities, ultimately benefiting both science and industry.”