From Buenos Aires to Jerusalem: Prof. Claudia Goldman Leads Students in Artificial Intelligence Education

Using artificial intelligence to address pressing real-world problems forms the core of professor Claudia V. Goldman’s research agenda.

Since July 2024, she has served as an associate professor in the Data Science Department at the Hebrew University Business School in Jerusalem.

After making aliyah from Buenos Aires, Goldman completed her high school education at Jerusalem’s Mae Boyer High School in 1986. She then entered military service before earning three degrees from the Hebrew University: a BSc in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Electronics in 1991; an MSc in Computer Science in 1993; and a PhD in Computer Science in 1999, guided by the late Professor Jeff Rosenschein.

From 1999 to 2005, Goldman held research positions at Bar-Ilan University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Haifa.

She subsequently transitioned into industry, spending three years as a team leader at Samsung Telecom Research in Herzliya, followed by fifteen years as a research scientist in the Research and Development Organization of General Motors in Herzliya.

Claudia is a distinguished inventor with a prolific patent portfolio of twenty-four patents. She has published more than fifty academic papers during her career.

She is married to Professor Roy Shenhar, a full professor at the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University.

Claudia answers our most pressing questions

The Magazine recently sat down with Claudia in her Hebrew University office.

During their conversation, several topics were explored, including how Claudia approaches AI within her classroom, the societal implications of artificial intelligence, her university’s course offerings on AI, the origins of the term “artificial intelligence,” and a technical project she worked on during her tenure at General Motors.

When asked about the use of AI in educational settings, Claudia explained that she is clear about when her students may use AI tools—for brainstorming, source verification, and critical evaluation—and the purpose behind each use. Students must provide attribution when utilizing AI-generated content, and she requires them to explain how the tool was employed. She explicitly instructs them not to submit AI-generated responses as their own work. By incorporating in-class discussions, peer presentations, and student-led activities, she ensures she can assess each student’s understanding directly.

On the topic of the Gates Foundation’s concept of “Human Reserved”—a proposed model to set aside certain jobs for humans despite AI-driven displacement—Claudia rejected a binary view, instead emphasizing the need to understand AI’s value across different contexts and to strengthen critical skills.

Regarding AI courses offered at the Hebrew University Business School, the following are available:

• AI for Social Good (#55982)

• Responsible AI (#55983)

• When AI Meets Humans and Society (#55022)

More than one billion people worldwide use AI each month. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined by John McCarthy, a mathematics professor at Dartmouth College, together with Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon, in a 1955 proposal submitted to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Earlier, in 1950, British mathematician Alan Turing had already posed the question of whether machines could think.

Claudia described one of her projects during her ten years at General Motors: introducing learning agents into the vehicle user experience, enabling drivers to remain focused on the road while better understanding autonomous driving functions.

Family background

Goldman’s grandparents migrated to Argentina long before many family members were murdered during the Holocaust. Her parents were born in Argentina, and she was their only child. She attended a Jewish school through seventh grade, studying Yiddish, Hebrew, and Spanish.

Having decided to pursue public schooling, she attended public secondary school in the mornings while continuing Jewish studies in the afternoons.

When asked what prompted the family to make aliyah at age sixteen, Claudia recalled that for many years her father wished to leave Argentina in search of a better future. In 1983, during one conversation, she told him: “The only place I can see myself growing up is Israel.” It took six months before they relocated to Jerusalem in January 1984.

Meeting her husband

Both spouses were students on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University. They met for the first time on the stairs of the Ross Building. Upon meeting a third time, they laughed about a well-known Hebrew expression: when you unexpectedly run into the same person three times in quick succession, one person owes the other ice cream.

He treated her to ice cream. The meeting took place in 1995, and they married four years later, in 1999.

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