A Sporting Advantage

From nanoscale complex applications to women’s rugby, doctoral student Sara Iacopetto is playing the Technion field of excellence.

Now 27 years old, Iacopetto first came to the Technion as part of a student exchange program with the Politecnico di Milano, where she studied for a master’s degree in Materials Engineering. She was invited to return to pursue a Ph.D. by her mentor Prof. (Emeritus) Moshe Eizenberg.

The Israeli temperament is similar to the Italian, says Iacopetto. “The scenery here is great. You just leave the dorms and you’re right in a forest. It’s very different from Milan, which is very urban.”

The master’s degree studies in Italy are frontal lecture oriented, without research, says Iacopetto. In contrast, she enjoys the experimental research and labs equipped with top-notch instruments at Technion. “I was surprised that the students here receive a lot of training and responsibility. They are an important part of the research team,” she says.

As a doctoral student, Iacopetto is involved in applied research, spending much of her time at the Technion  Electron Microscopy Center (MIKA) and at the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute. “There is still a great deal of theory involved – because scientific understanding is essential when developing complex applications. I am dealing with the characterization of Metal-Semiconductor interfaces for S/D contacts of logic transistors.”

For the past three years, Iacopetto has also been captain of the Haifa women’s rugby team, and she has no doubt that rugby helps her very much in her studies. “I believe that sports are a necessary activity for preserving the mental health of students. Rugby, specifically, is a charming, very physical but yet not violent sport that gives me a lot of joy and motivation for studying as well. The team is a family and includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims – from various countries and backgrounds – and this is a great combination with the strongest team spirit I ever found.” And no less important – on the Wild Boars team she met her partner today, Omri Afek.

Her sports career began with athletics, which led her to Italian championships. At the age of 18, after seven years of long-distance running, she traveled with her father to South Africa. “One of the pubs broadcast an international rugby tournament,” she recalls. “It captivated me, and when I returned to Italy, I looked for a team in which to play”

“I started playing in the Technion team during the master exchange of 7 months. They helped me a lot in the first period while I was settling here again for the PhD.”

The Wild Boars team at the Technion is now part of the Maccabi Haifa Association. The Technion team produced top players in the Israeli National team, including the captain of the current Women’s National team, Daria Velikovsky.

What’s next? “I intend to complete my doctorate and leave academics to go to industry. And the possibility of working in a startup company intrigues me. In any case, I don’t intend to leave Israel, probably not for a long time.”