Professor Jeheskel "Hezy" Shoshani was an evolutionary biologist and a world-renowned elephant specialist who studied the family for over 35 years.
Prof. Shoshani established the Elephant Research Foundation in 1977. He published about 200 scientific articles and books on elephants and edited the publication Elephant. He taught at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan USA, for approximately 25 years and at the University of Asmara in Eritrea since 1998. In 2007 he moved to Ethiopia to teach at the University of Addis Ababa. Hezy was a passionate advocate of elephant conservation.
Hezy was among several people killed in an explosion in a public minibus in downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 20, 2008.