עובדות ועובדים

Assaf Bloom has been providing counseling regarding Bachelor and Master studies in Germany and summer language programs at the IC in Tel Aviv since 2016. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel Aviv University. Assaf has taken part in artistic and theoretical projects with the Stuttgart Higher School of Music, ZKM Karlsruhe and the Berlin University of Arts (UDK) sound studies department, alongside attending DAAD training seminars at the organization’s headquarters in Bonn.

Natalia Suponitskaya studied German Linguistics at Saint-Petersburg State University, where she received her PhD in 2016 on the pragmatics of German academic texts. During her studies, Natalia took courses at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena within an exchange semester, and was awarded a research scholarship at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg. Afterwards, she worked as a German teacher and research assistant at the Department of German Philology in the State University of Saint-Petersburg. Since April 2023, she has been working as an assistant and educational advisor at the DAAD Information Centre Tel Aviv.

Sandra Destradi is Chair for International Relations and a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Currently, she serves as the inaugural DAAD long-term guest professor at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel. Previously, she was a Full Professor of International Relations and Regional Governance at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, a Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Among her research interests are the consequences of populism for international politics, regional crisis management, and the role of the Global South in global governance. Her monograph titled „Reluctance in World Politics: Why States Fail to Act Decisively” was published in July 2023.

Chiara Lipp is a trained primary school teacher, doctoral candidate and lecturer specializing in multilingualism, language policy and Jewish education. After earning her Bachelor’s (B.A.) and Master’s degrees (M.Ed.) at the Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd, she completed her teacher training at a Jewish primary school in southern Germany. She is currently pursuing a PhD in German Studies with a focus on Interculturality and Multilingualism, researching language policy in (Jewish) primary schools. Her pedagogical career has included positions as a language teacher in Peru and England and at a Montessori school in Baden-Württemberg where she was involved in German as a Second Language (DaZ) support. At the higher education level, she has taught German didactics and multilingualism in education at the Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd and Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. Since October 2025, she has held the position of DAAD Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In addition to her academic work, she volunteers as an editor and author for EDA Magazin, the official magazine of the Jewish Student Union Germany (JSUD). Her articles on religious topics are also regularly published in the Jüdische Allgemeine, Germany’s largest Jewish weekly newspaper.

Nicole McTaggart received her Master’s degree in Teaching English and French from the University of Wuppertal in 2007 and subsequently completed a Master’s degree in Teaching German as a Foreign Language at the University of Essen. She further concluded her postgraduate teacher-training programme with the second state examination at a high school in Dortmund in western Germany. Her pedagogical experience includes serving as a DAAD assistant teacher for German as a Foreign Language at a high school in Sydney, as well as teaching English, French, and German at a secondary school in Cologne.

At the tertiary level, she has taught German at various institutions, including the Goethe-Institut and several universities such as the Reichman University in Herzliya and the Technion in Haifa. Since September 2025, she has been serving as a DAAD lecturer at the University of Haifa. Her academic interests focus on multilingualism and intercultural learning.