Career Development Award for Sheila Roitman
The Weizmann Institute of Science honours postdoctoral researchers for their outstanding scientific achievements and supports the next stage of their research and academic career.
Sheila Roitman, a postdoctoral researcher in Detlef Weigel’s Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, has received the Women‘s Postdoctoral Career Development Award in Science from the Weizmann Institute of Science. The award combines financial support with career development opportunities for outstanding Israeli women scientists pursuing postdoctoral research abroad.
“It is an honour to receive this award alongside so many talented scientists,” says Sheila Roitman. Beyond the financial support, she particularly values the investment the program makes in the awardees and their careers through individual coaching and professional development opportunities. “I really appreciate the trust the Weizmann Institute is placing in me and my future career, and I hope to justify that trust.”
At the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Sheila Roitman’s research focuses on a fundamental challenge in biology: understanding how viral infections influence not only individual hosts but also the wider biological communities they inhabit. Key questions include what determines whether a virus can successfully infect a particular host and how that infection subsequently affects the surrounding ecosystem.
“Viruses are active players in every ecosystem, capable of affecting entire communities,” she explains. She investigates these interactions in an environmentally and economically important system: the plant microbiome.
Her research takes a two-level approach. First, she investigates the role of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — in shaping plant-associated bacterial communities. Second, she studies plant-virus interactions, asking which viral proteins determine whether an infection succeeds and how successful infections, in turn, affect the plant microbiome.
About Sheila Roitman
Born in Argentina, Sheila Roitman studied Agroecology at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before completing her MSc and PhD in Marine Microbiology at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
During her doctoral research, she studied how bacteriophages infecting cyanobacteria can alter their hosts’ physiology, with a particular focus on photosynthesis and lipid metabolism. She also investigated algae-virus and virus-virus interactions.
She joined Detlef Weigel’s Department of Molecular Biology in December 2022, bringing together her background in agriculture and her expertise in virus-microbe interactions to investigate the role of viruses in plant microbiomes.
About the award
The Women’s Postdoctoral Career Development Award in Science was launched by the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2022 to advance women scientists in Israel. It supports Israeli women scientists conducting postdoctoral research at leading institutions and laboratories abroad during a crucial stage of their career development.
The award provides $75,000 over two years as well as individual career coaching. Its financial and professional development support is intended to help women scientists pursue careers in academia and encourage their return to Israel to lead the future of Israeli academia. The program is administered by the Weizmann Institute’s Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Gender Equality and is open to women scientists who completed their PhD in Israel and are conducting postdoctoral research abroad.