Weizmann Institute of Science

The Weizmann Institute of Science (Hebrew: מכון ויצמן למדע‎ Machon Weizmann LeMada), known as Machon Weizmann, is a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and post-graduate studies in the sciences.

It is one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary research centers, with around 2,500 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical, and administrative staff working at the Institute.^[1] In 2011, the magazine The Scientist rated the Weizmann Institute as the best place in the world to work in academia among non-US institutions.^[2]

History

Founded in 1934 by Chaim Weizmann and Benjamin M. Bloch as the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, it was renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in his honor on November 2, 1949. Before he became President of the State of Israel, Weizmann pursued his research in organic chemistry at its laboratories. The Weizmann Institute presently has about 2,500 students, staff, and faculty, and awards M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, biological chemistry and biology, as well as several interdisciplinary programs.^[3]

Youth programs

In addition to its academic programs, the Weizmann Institute runs programs for youth, including science clubs, camps and competitions. The Bessie F. Lawrence International Summer Science Institute accepts high school graduates from all over the world for a four-week science-based summer camp. The Clore Garden of Science, which opened in 1999, is the world’s first completely interactive outdoor science museum.^[3][4]

Awards

In 1996 and 2002 respectively, two Weizmann Institute researchers – Amir Pnueli and Adi Shamir – won the Turing Award.^[5][6]

Ada Yonath won the Wolf Prize for Chemistry in 2006 and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009. Several faculty have been awarded Wolf Prizes in Medicine, including Leo Sachs (1980), Meir Wilchek (1987), and Michael Sela and Ruth Arnon (shared, 1998).

Distinguished faculty

• Oded Goldreich, computer scientist
• Shafrira Goldwasser, two time winner of the Godel Prize (1993 and 2001)
• Haim Harari, theoretical physicist
• David Harel (born 1950), computer scientist
• Ephraim Katzir, biophysicist, fourth President of the State of Israel
• Harry J. Lipkin, physicist
• Mordehai Milgrom, physicist
• Chaim L. Pekeris, geophysicist
• Amir Pnueli, computer scientist, Turing Award (1996)
• Adi Shamir, cryptographer, Turing Award (2002)
• Igal Talmi, physicist
• Benjamin Elazari Volcani, discovered life in the Dead Sea and pioneered biological silicon research.
• Chaim Weizmann, chemist, first President of the State of Israel
• Ada Yonath, crystallographer, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009)

Presidents

• Chaim Weizmann (1949–1952; 1934–1952 if predecessor Daniel Sieff Institute included)
• Abba Eban (1959–1966)
• Meyer Weisgal (1966–1970)
• Albert Sabin (1970–1972)
• Israel Dostrovsky (1972–1975)
• Michael Sela (1975–1985)
• Aryeh Dvoretzky (1985–1988)
• Haim Harari (1988–2001)
• Ilan Chet (2001–2006)
• Daniel Zajfman (2006–present)

Past officers of the Weizmann Institute

Notable alumni

• Amikam Aharoni (1929–2002), physicist
• Dorit Aharonov ( born 1970), computer scientist specializing in quantum computing
• Christian B. Anfinsen (1916–95) was an American biochemist.
• Ofer Biham, faculty member at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Achi Brandt (born 1938), mathematician, noted for pioneering contributions to multigrid methods
• Ehud Gazit, biochemist and nanotechnologist, and Professor at the Department of Molecular Microbiology & Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University
• Alexander Goldfarb, (born 1947), microbiologist, activist, and author
• Anders Levermann, climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor of the Dynamics of the Climate System at Potsdam University
• Mario Livio (born 1945), astrophysicist
• Alexander Levitzki (born 1940), biochemist
• Miron Livny, senior researcher and professor specializing in distributed computing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Henry Markram (born 1962), Director of the Blue Brain Project at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Amir Pnueli (1941–2009), computer scientist
• Giora Ram (born 1947), interdisciplinary scientist in physics, mathematics, computer science, and medicine
• Shmuel Safra, Professor of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University
• Josip Schlessinger (born 1945), biochemist and biophysician
• Adi Shamir (born 1952), cryptographer

See also

• List of universities in Israel
• Science and technology in Israel

References

External links

• Weizmann Institute of Science Website (English)
• The Institute's scientific activities (English)
• Institute's blog on ScienceBlogs
• American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science (English)