Haute 100: Mortimer Zuckerman Launches New STEM Program

New York Daily News owner and Haute 100 lister Mortimer Zuckerman has launched a new scholarship program to promote the advancement of STEM research. The program, which is named the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, will partner American academics with Israel’s top research centers: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Zuckerman announced the debut of the innovative program Monday, Jan. 25^th at the Harvard Club of New York City in Midtown. According to the Daily News, Zuckerman said, “At a time when collaboration is essential to advanced scientific research, this program gives the next generations of leading American and Israeli academics the ability to work together on cutting edge research in ways that stand to benefit their fields for years to come. The result will help transform not just the work of the scholars involved, but the way the United States and Israel approach collaboration and cooperation across the sciences.”

Fellow Haute 100 lister Governor Andrew Cumo addressed the crowd full of VIPs. Those in attendance included many of U.S. & Israel Nobel Prize laureates, presidents of major Israeli research institutions, U.S. political & business leaders, Israeli government representatives and American academic leaders. Cumo said, “Today’s announcement goes even further … it’s not just about the STEM disciplines. Underlying it is the concept of collaboration, and of partnership, and of bringing two great powers together.”

The program will begin in the 2016=2017 academic year. Over the course of the next two decades, the program will afford $100 million in scholarships and related educational endeavors that will benefit those who were awarded with the scholarship as well as the universities and general public.

The 78-year-old has been the owner of the New York Daily News for more than two decades. The nearly century-old New York tabloid is the eighth-largest circulating U.S. newspaper. He also owns US News & World Report. The Canadian-born media proprietor is also the chairman of Boston Properties, one of the largest real estate developers in the United States.