Amir Perez is a doctoral candidate in the Comparative Literature program at Tel Aviv University. 

His research focuses on the concept of "World Literature"; (Weltliteratur, littérature mondiale)—how a literary work or tradition transcends boundaries of language and culture, place and time, to achieve "worldly" status—from a critical postcolonial perspective: what is the place of literary works and traditions from the Global South and East within the realm of
world literature?

The research explores these questions through the case study of the "topos"—or literary image—of the city of Oran in northern Algeria. By comparing writings about the city by Arab and Amazigh, French and Jewish authors, the research argues that the literary field formed around Oran serves as a measure for world literature in the postcolonial era—a time when cultural and political hierarchies are shifting amidst the dynamic interplay of place, language, culture, and community that continues to unfold between France, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Thanks to the Chateaubriand Fellowship, Amir was hosted at La Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris,
where he met and collaborated with leading researchers of Algerian literature; with their
assistance, he was able to deepen his research and forge both professional and personal
connections.

Sergey Hazanov is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where his research focuses on superconducting qubits for quantum computing. His work aims to make these qubits more robust, a key step toward building reliable quantum computers. Supported by the Chateaubriand Fellowship, Sergey spent eight months in the Quantum Circuits Group at ENS Lyon, under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin Huard, in collaboration with Alice & Bob, a French quantum-computing startup. There he helped develop a new generation of a promising qubit design that is inherently more resilient to noise, contributing to its circuit design, simulations, and first measurements. This experience greatly advanced his doctoral research and strengthened the scientific ties between his lab at the Weizmann Institute and the French quantum-computing community.