In March 2021, an agreement to continue the doctoral research collaboration between Shenkar and UML was signed, on the footsteps of a previous 10 year-agreement (October 2010), under the umbrella of the Frank Foundation. The signing date was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the agreement was ultimately signed online.

When the borders between the countries opened up, in September 2021 professor Shmuel Kenig – vice-president of Shenkar, along with professor Hanna Dodiuk – head of the master’s degree program at the Department of Polymer Materials Engineering, met with the president of UML, professor Jacqueline Moloney and the provost of UML, professor Joseph Hartman, in order to summarize the first half-year of the agreement. During this time, Dr. Orli Weizman completed her doctorate, cum laude, and joined the department faculty at Shenkar. Avia Bar also continued her doctorate, which she is due to complete at the end of the year. A new candidate to join next year was also discussed. The meeting was part of the annual assembly of the Lowell Plastics Engineering Department, which took place at a golf course and where graduates of the department raised funds for scholarships for plastics engineering students at UML.

In the photo, from left: Prof. Jacqueline Moloney, Prof. Hanna Dodiuk, Prof. Shmuel Kenig, Prof. Joseph Hartman

The visit at Lowell was also used to discuss and guide the doctoral candidate Aviya Bar who is researching and developing a new generation of conductive materials with an elongation capacity of over 200% for applications of flexible electronics for wearable computing and soft robotics.

In the photo, from right: Prof. Shmuel Kenig, Aviya Bar, Prof. Hanna Dodiuk at the Lowell Lab.