When More Hands Go Up: How Nucleate Israel Is Growing Women Leaders in Biotech

From university classrooms to startup companies, Nucleate Israel is helping more women see career leadership roles in their future

Shahar Zachariah presents a Tel Aviv University about Nucleate Israel. — Shahar Zachariah presenting to a large room. Photo courtesy of Nucleate Israel.

“Who believes their research could become a company?”

Every time Shahar Zachariah speaks at a Nucleate Israel event at Tel Aviv University (TAU), she asks the audience this very question.

Then she counts the raised hands.

“That's one way I measure whether our efforts are working,” she said. “Not how many people attend, but how many raise a hand this time who didn't last time.”

For Zachariah, TAU lead for Nucleate Israel, that question reflects what Nucleate Israel hopes to accomplish: helping students envision themselves as scientists and as founders, entrepreneurs, and future industry leaders.

As a Walder Foundation grantee partner, Nucleate Israel is helping strengthen Israel's biotech ecosystem by investing in the next generation of innovators. Through five university chapters and a network that has engaged more than 1,500 students, the organization provides mentorship, entrepreneurship education, networking opportunities, industry exposure, and leadership development programs.

See how this work is unfolding, as shared with our community on social media:

Seeing Possibility
While Nucleate Israel's programming is open to all students, its leaders recognize that women face unique opportunities and challenges on the path to entrepreneurship and leadership.

Data suggests that women comprise roughly one-third of Israel's high-tech workforce but account for just 10.6% of startup CEOs and approximately 15% of startup founders across Israel's broader technology ecosystem. Women also hold only 17.6% of senior executive positions in private high-tech companies. While comparable, biotech-specific leadership data is more limited, these figures highlight the broader leadership gap that organizations across Israel's innovation landscape are working to address.

Organizations like Nucleate Israel are helping build the women’s leadership pipeline. More than 60% of Nucleate Israel's leadership team is made up of women who are organizing events, mentoring students, and building partnerships.

Sarit Feldman-Trabelsi (middle) greets students at a Nucleate Israel gathering. — Sarit Feldman-Trabelsi (middle) greets Nucleate Israel founder, Liyam Chitayat, at a Nucleate Israel gathering. Photo credit: Nadav Yair

For many of Nucleate Israel's current leaders, involvement with the organization expanded their understanding of what was possible.

“Nucleate helped me realize that there is a way to combine the scientific world with personal and interpersonal skills, and that place is the world of biotech entrepreneurship,” said Shelly Gendler, co-managing director of Nucleate Israel. “It broadened my horizons about the biotech industry and the business world, and made me understand that this is the world I want to build my career in.”

Sarit Feldman-Trabelsi, the organization’s director of social media and former co-managing director, experienced something similar when she helped build the Israeli chapter from its earliest days.

“When I discovered Nucleate, I was among the first to join the Israeli team,” she said. “Building a community from scratch, reaching the right people, and creating the right connections to bridge the gap between students, the industry, and entrepreneurship is an amazingly fulfilling experience.”

For Elisheva Gur, Nucleate Israel’s Hebrew University Lead, leadership emerged through creating opportunities for others.

“I think I first truly saw myself as a leader after organizing my first Nucleate event,” she said. “It made me realize that leadership is not only about having expertise, but also about creating opportunities for others and building a community around them.”

A women’s dinner in Jerusalem with May Meltzer (back row, center-left) of Prilenia, a clinical-stage biotech company, discussing the journey from a Ph.D. to a first role in industry. Photo courtesy of Nucleate Israel.

A Seat at the Table
Nucleate Israel pursues its mission through a range of programs designed to help students explore entrepreneurship, connect with industry leaders, and better understand how scientific discoveries become products, therapies, and companies. For many of the organization's women leaders, however, one challenge remains especially important to overcome: ensuring that women can see themselves reflected in the future of the biotech industry.

The Women in Israel Biotech dinners were created with that goal in mind.

For Lee Halevi, director of experts and mentors for Nucleate Israel, the need is clear. Through her work recruiting subject-matter experts and industry mentors, she sees firsthand how leadership roles remain disproportionately filled by men.

"In my role overseeing expert recruitment, I get a bird's-eye view of the ecosystem," Halevi said. "For every cohort, we aim to recruit specialized experts, and the reality is that more men can often be found in those positions than women. The Women in Israel Biotech dinners create a dedicated space for brilliant women to build the kinds of networks that naturally propel people into leadership roles."

Through these gatherings, students and trainees connect with women founders, executives, investors, and industry leaders in small-group settings designed to foster mentorship, belonging, and career exploration.

For Zachariah, the tabletop format is a value-add.

“At a panel, one woman talks and forty people listen. At a table, a Ph.D. student can ask what she actually needs to know and can get an honest answer from someone who has lived it.”

Those conversations help answer the very question Zachariah asks at the start of every event: Could my research become something more?

The Women in Israel Biotech dinner conversations often focus on topics that rarely emerge in formal settings.

“The intimacy of a small group allows women to ask the extra questions, the ones that don't always come up in a larger room,” shares Gendler. “Questions about work-life balance, for example, are rarely raised in a big forum, but in an intimate setting every question feels legitimate and welcome.”

For Gur, one of the most meaningful outcomes is the sense of solidarity these gatherings create.

“One of the most powerful things was seeing women realize that they were not alone in the struggles they were experiencing,” she reflected after a dinner. “Beyond the dinner itself, it created connections and a sense of community that I believe are essential for building a stronger network of women in biotech.”

A Future Where Leadership Is Assumed
For the women leading Nucleate Israel, success would mean expanding who sees themselves as capable of leading, founding, investing, and making decisions that shape the future of biotechnology.

“The students in the room now are the leaders of the next decade,” Zachariah said. “If we put real effort into making them better, we don't get one good company, we get a stronger ecosystem.”

Their answers to one question reveal a shared vision for that future: not simply more women in biotech, but more women who assume leadership belongs to them.

What do you hope the next generation of women biotech leaders in Israel will look like?