FameLab - is an international science communication competition created by the UK’s Cheltenham Science Festival to discover the new faces of science.

FAMELAB Israel 2009 Partners

Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem
Hemda Science Education Centre Tel Aviv
The Unit of Pre-Academic Studies at the Technion Haifa
TEVA Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

PRIZES
The Winner received a free trip to the UK Cheltenham Science Festival in June
The Winner received a laptop
The two top runner ups at the national final received digital cameras, and the Audience Choice an MP4 player
The 3 top winners received an annual free subscription to the new science magazine Odyseey
All 9 finalists received an annual free subscription to the Scientific American Israel journal

The Final competition took place on Monday 4 May 2009 at the Hemda Science Education Centre in Tel Aviv.
Shani Waidergoren won first place and Ohad Barzilay (Ohad was also the Audience Favourite)and Pnina First were the two runner-ups.

Our FameLab Finalists (alphabetical by first name)

Ravid Barak-Michael has a BSc in Physics, and is currently studying for her MSc in Nano-sciences and Nano-technology at the Technion. Her research topic is "Ion Based Electronics", and her friends say it takes a lot more than three minutes to make her stop explaining what that actually means. She likes reading science fiction and disassemble all sorts of electronical gizmos so she can buy some new ones. Final Talk: Talking in nature's language

Elroei David is a PhD candidate at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has a BSc in life science, and M.Med.Sc in virology. His PhD deals with a process known as EMT (Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition), which is thought to be one of the main causes to the development of cancer in general, and particularly to cancer metastasis. His focus is to analyze this process, trying to figure it, and hopefully find some ways to control it and prevent its downstream affects. Final Talk: The bright side of the Herpes virus - the next hope in the war against brain cancer

Ohad Barzilay received his BSc degree in Computer Science and Mathematics and an MS. degree in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University,  in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He is working towards a PhD. degree in Computer Science at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include empirical methods in software engineering research, programming languages, tools and frameworks, agile software development, and “real world” software engineering education. Ohad's professional experience includes working as a software engineer at several software companies, teaching Computer Science and Software Engineering courses in five academic institutes, training in various companies and teaching mathematics in private schools. Final Talk: The mathematical definition of reputation and relevance according to Google

Penina First is studying for an MSc degree in Biotechnology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She holds a first degree in Chemistry and Biology from the Jerusalem College of Technology. Penina works as a counselor at the Bloomfield Science Museum, and helps visitors experience science. Final Talk: It's not me, It's my germs

Goren Gordon obtained a Bachelor in Medical Sciences from Tel-Aviv University, where he also finished a BA and MSc in Physics and an MBA. He recently finished a PhD in Chemistry  at the Weizmann Institute, doing research on quantum decoherence, and is currently starting another PhD in Neurobiology researching active learning. Final Talk: Invisibility Cloak (NanoTechnology and light)

Guy Krief has a BSc in Biotechnology from Bar-Ilan University, and is currently studying for his MSc (Bio Medical Sciences) in dental medicine at the Faculty of Dental Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on Proteomic characterization of human whole saliva for the identification of disease-specific biomarkers. Final Talk: The protein "p53" and its role in a new potential treatment for cancer

Marina Rosenfeld is working on a PhD in Psychobiology at the Faculty of Medicine in the Technion. Her research focuses on molecular processes underlying schizophrenia. She tries to characterize the molecular differences between healthy subjects and schizophrenic patients and also works on creating rat models for schizophrenia. Her MSc. in Molecular Biology was obtained at the Technion, proceeded by a first degree in Biology at Ben-Gurion University. For 7 years she has been working as a teacher in the Kidum group, preparing more than 400 students for the Psychometric Exam. She believes it's important that the general public will be aware of the latest occurrences in modern science so that more people will understand the importance of investments in the wide scientific research and higher education. Final Talk: Don't wake up the cancer!

Shani Waidergoren is finishing her MA in neuropsychology this year at Haifa University, and as part of her training is doing practical work as a clinical psychologist at "Shalvata" mental hospital this year. She is moving on to complete her PhD research, about retrieval processes of remote memories and their relations to brain substrates. Shani’s Bachelor degree is in psychology (cum laude) from the Open University of Israel and was obtained while studying in high school and completing her army service. Final Talk: Prosopagnosia -the inability to recognize and remember faces

Noga Zewi has a first degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Technion. She is currently studying for her Master degree in Computer Science at the Technion. Her work focuses on theoretical research in the area of foundations of computer science and combinatorics. Final Talk: Diffie-Hellman-Merkle Cryptographic Key Exchange Protocol is Just a Piece of Cake