בתר דוקטור
Dr. Maha Natoor
Dr. Maha Natoor received her Ph.D. in 2021 from the University of Haifa, Faculty of Education, advisor Prof. Avihu Shoshana. Her research explored the Druze belief in reincarnation in Israel, focusing on the Notq phenomenon- the remembering and talking about the previous incarnation. She examined both psychological and social aspects of this phenomenon. Her work has been published in leading journals including Ethos and Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
From 2021 to 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Haifa with Prof. Carol Kidron and Prof. Avihu Shoshana. From 2022 to 2023, she was a Fulbright fellow and visiting postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University with Prof. Tanya Luhrmann.
This year, Dr. Natoor is a postdoctoral fellow and grant recipient the Yonathan Shapiro Foundation & The Harry Bloomfield Postdoctoral Scholarships, Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. Her research involves psychological anthropology, minority therapists and idioms of distress and resilience. Dr. Natoor's present research focuses on different Notq-related areas, such as reincarnation and mind perception among the Druze, Notq and material culture, and the language and gender elements of the Notq. In addition to her academic pursuits, Dr. Natoor works as a pediatric occupational therapist, where her clinical work and academic research complement and enrich each other.
Dr. Areen Hawari
Dr. Areen Hawari holds A PhD in Gender Studies from Ben-Gurion University. Her research focuses on the activism of the Palestinian women: between feminism, religion and the state. She is the director of the “Gender Studies Program” in Mada al Carmel- Arab Center for Applied Social Research and adjunct lecturer in the division of Graduate Studies at Rothberg International School and in Glocal graduate program in international development at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently she is postdoctoral Fellows at the department of sociology and anthropology in Tel Aviv University.
Dr Maayan Roichman
Dr Roichman holds a doctoral degree in Anthropology from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is an Azrieli Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and a Postdoctoral Affiliate at the Department of Industrial Engineering at Tel Aviv University (IWiT Lab). She is also a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, where she is currently based.
Dr Roichman is interested in cultural production and its intersections with politics, ethics, and subjectivity. Her research focuses on the subjective processes involved in creating cultural artefacts such as media and technology. Her thesis was an ethnography of a new artistic genre of ‘personal cinema’ in Israel, examining the professional development of young Israeli filmmakers and their relationships with the social systems and institutions in which they operate.
Her new research project investigates how culture shapes the development of conversational AI, with a particular focus on the perspectives of those involved in its construction. Her research sheds light on the views of developers regarding language, authenticity, and the future, and how these views are influenced by cultural contexts. By doing so, her work seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the social settings in which algorithmic outputs are constructed and the ways in which cultural values and practices shape technological development.
Dr. Maria Gretzky
Dr. Maria Gretzky is a sociologist and anthropologist. Her research looks at the intersections of emotional and digital culture in the fields of finance and education. She completed her PhD as part of the Edmond de Rothschild Excellence Program at Ben-Gurion University. Advised by Prof. Aviad Raz, Prof. Dani Filc, and Dr. Gideon Dishon, her dissertation focused on digitalization in higher education, emotional capitalism, institutional power relations, and practices of knowledge production.
Dr. Gretzky’s research integrates perspectives from the sociology and anthropology of emotions, economic sociology, sociology of knowledge, and STS. She employs qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, ethnography, and discourse analysis. Her work explores how algorithms and digital technologies in education and finance shape academic subjectivities, relations of authority and autonomy, and emerging forms of algorithmic control and surveillance.
