Prof. Yakir Aharonov - Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board
Yakir Aharonov holds a joint appointment as Professor of Physics at Tel Aviv University in Israel and at the University of South Carolina in the United States. He holds a Chair in Theoretical Physics at South Carolina and was honored with "The Distinguished Scientist Governor Award of South Carolina" in 1993. Professor Aharonov is a theoretical condensed matter physicist studying nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. Aharonov was a co-recipient of the 1998 Wolf Prize for the discovery of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect. Aharonov and the late David Bohm proposed in 1959 that the form of the quantum-mechanical coupling of electromagnetic fields to electrons had some very counterintuitive implications for the behavior of electrons. Specifically, electrons passing through field-free regions that surrounded a region of magnetic flux would acquire different phases depending on whether they passed to the left or to the right of the flux tube. The phase difference, which can be measured in an interference experiment depends on the flux enclosed. The controversial AB effect has been observed, and has, in fact become an experimental tool in the domain of mesoscopic physics. Aharonov has also been recognized for this work by the 1995 Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize.
Professor Aharonov received his undergraduate education at Technion University in Haifa, Israel graduating with a B.Sc. in 1956. He continued his studies at Bristol University in England receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1960. Aharonov came to the United States for a one-year postdoctoral position at Brandeis University in 1960-61 prior to returning to Israel and joining the faculty of Yeshiva University as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1964 and Professor in 1967 and held a joint appointment with Yeshiva University and Tel Aviv University beginning in 1967 that continued until 1973. Aharonov began his current arrangement of a joint position at Tel Aviv University and the University of South Carolina in 1973. He has published over 130 papers in refereed journals during his career.
Professor Aharonov has been honored with numerous awards from around the world. In addition to the Wolf and Hewlett-Packard Prizes he has received the Weizmann Prize and Rothschild Prize in 1984; the Israel National Prize in Physics in 1989; and the Elliot Cresson Medal in 1991. Aharonov received a Miller Research Professorship Award at Berkeley, 1988-89; the Alex Maguy-Glass Chair in Theoretical Physics, Tel Aviv University; and a Chair in Theoretical Physics, University of South Carolina. Honorary Doctorates have been awarded to Aharonov from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the University of South Carolina, Bristol University and the University of Buenos Aires. Professor Aharonov was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in Israel and the United States in 1990 and 1993, respectively and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1981.
More information on Prof. Yakir Aharonov.
- Perimeter Scholars International
- Boston Physics
- Tel-Aviv University
Prof. Eshel Ben Jacob - Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
Eshel Ben Jacob is Professor of Physics at Tel Aviv University, The Maguy-Glass Professor of Physics of Complex Systems, Fellow of the World Institute of Physics and president of the Israeli Physics Society. He is a world-renowned physicist who has made outstanding contributions to the application of mathematics and physical principles to microbiology and neurobiology. He is particularly well known for his studies of the interaction of microorganisms that lead to complex multicellular behavior. More recently his group pioneered a new strategy of learning from cultured neural networks and generic modeling about epileptic brain activity using a novel functional holography method for analyzing recorded brain activity. Professor Ben Jacob published over 200 papers with about 5000 citations. He supervised 18 students (6 have academic positions and three are post doctoral fellows), and 5 post doctoral fellows (all have academic positions).
More information on Prof. Eshel Ben Jacob.
Leslie Lobel M.D., Ph.D. - Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
Leslie Lobel is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Virology & Developmental Biology at Ben Gurion University. He earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude from Columbia College of Columbia University in Chemistry and entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University earning the M.D.-Ph.D. degrees in 1988. His doctoral work was in Retrovirology under Stephen Goff at Columbia University. After postdoctoral work in developmental biology on C. elegans in the laboratory of H. Robert Horvitz at M.I.T., he returned to the Department of Medicine at Columbia University before moving to the Department of Virology at Ben Gurion University. He set up a laboratory of immunovirology and cancer immunology at BGU in 2003. His work focuses in part on the isolation of totally human monoclonal antibodies to a variety of viral diseases that currently lack effective treatment, such as Hepatitis C and avian influenza as well as RSV, ebola and Rift Valley Fever. In addition, the laboratory is studying the humoral immune response to cancer and to this end is isolating totally human monoclonal antibodies that are cancer specific from cancer patients and healthy adults. Dr. Lobel’s laboratory at BGU is divided into two groups that study cancer immunology and the human humoral response to viral diseases. It consists of 1 Research Associate, 3 technicians, 5 Ph.D. students, 7 MSc. Students, and 2 project students.
More information on Dr. Leslie Lobel.
|
