From No Math Credits to Leading Israel’s Higher-Education System
Dr. Maya Logsi, 46, grew up in Ashdod to Moroccan immigrant parents who were barely literate, and finished high school without matriculation in math. A teacher once told her parents to give up on her scientific ambitions and steer her toward a more practical path, but her late mother encouraged her to pursue whatever she wanted. Logsi says she left school with five-unit credits in chemistry, biology and English, and zero units in math.
Her breakthrough came in the Israel Defense Forces. After joining Unit 8200, she was told by then-commander Pinhas Buchris to return only after completing her matriculation. She did, later became a team commander, and went on to study through Ahva College in Kiryat Malakhi before transferring to Ben-Gurion University. From there she built an academic career that included a doctoral path sparked by research on lisianthus flowers, where she discovered a previously unidentified phenomenon, published it, and moved into a combined PhD track.
Logsi now heads the Council for Higher Education and says her mission is to widen access for students from weaker backgrounds. She says 22% of students come from the periphery, Arabs make up 19% of the academy, and 19,000 ultra-Orthodox students are enrolled. The council is also spending 614 million shekels on two programs, Or and Bereshit, to reduce brain drain and bring Israeli researchers back from abroad.
A major focus of her tenure is artificial intelligence. She says AI is not eliminating academia but forcing it to change through regulation, infrastructure, teaching and research, and notes that the council oversees 57 universities and colleges, 336,000 students and a 15 billion-shekel annual budget. Two committees are studying AI’s effects on learning and research, with pilot programs and practical recommendations expected within a year. She also says the council launched 120 million shekels in calls for proposals to build academia-industry parks on campuses.
Logsi rejects criticism over her appointment and says it was professional, not political. She also says she is fighting unequal representation of women in advanced study, citing 60% female enrollment overall but only 25% female full professors, and she says the council has launched targeted scholarships and the “Keshet HaShavion” program. She adds that she left a senior, well-paid post at Israel Aerospace Industries because she believes academia can transform lives, as it did for her.
