Weizmann Institute of Science
| Weizmann Institute of Science | |
|---|---|
| מכון ויצמן למדע | |
 | |
| Established | 1934 |
| Type | Public |
| President | Prof. Daniel Zajfman |
Academic staff | 952 |
Administrative staff | 400 |
| Students | 1,082 |
| Postgraduates | 356 |
| 692 | |
| Location | Rehovot, Israel |
| Campus | Urban |
| Postdoctoral fellows | 220 |
| Website | www.weizmann.ac.il |
 | |
The Weizmann Institute of Science (Hebrew: מכון ויצמן למדע Machon Weizmann LeMada) is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and postgraduate tutelage in the sciences.
It is a multidisciplinary research center, with around 2,500 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical, and administrative staff working at the Institute.[1][2]
Three Nobel laureates and three Turing Award laureates have been associated with the Weizmann Institute of Science.
History
Founded in 1934 by Chaim Weizmann and his first team, among them Benjamin M. Bloch, as the Daniel Sieff Research Institute. Weizmann had offered the post of director to Nobel Prize laureate Fritz Haber, but took over the directorship himself after Haber's death en route to Palestine. Before he became President of the State of Israel in February 1949, Weizmann pursued his research in organic chemistry at its laboratories. The institute was renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in his honor on November 2, 1949, in agreement with the Sieff family.
Details
The Weizmann Institute presently has about 2,500 students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, and faculty, and awards M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology, as well as several interdisciplinary programs.[3] The symbol of the Weizmann Institute of Science is the multibranched Ficus tree.[4]
International standing
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.[5] In 2012, the Weizmann Institute made Shanghai Jiao Tong University's list of the world’s 100 top universities in 93rd place[6] and moved up to 92nd in 2013.[7]
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][8]
Awards
Three Weizmann Institute researchers won the Turing Award: Amir Pnueli in 1996,[9] Adi Shamir in 2002[10] and Shafi Goldwasser in 2012.[11]
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 and alumni, alphabetically
- Uri Alon, systems biologist
- Amos de-Shalit, physicist
- Oded Goldreich, computer scientist
- Shafrira Goldwasser, computer scientist two time winner of the Godel Prize (1993 and 2001), and the Turing Award (2012)
- Haim Harari, theoretical physicist
- David Harel (born 1950), computer scientist
- Yoseph Imry, theoretical physicist
- Ephraim Katzir, biophysicist, fourth President of the State of Israel
- Michael Levitt, chemical physics, presently at Stanford University: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013)
- Shneior Lifson, physicist
- Harry J. Lipkin, physicist
- Mordehai Milgrom, physicist
- Chaim L. Pekeris, geophysicist
- Amir Pnueli, computer scientist, Turing Award (1996)
- Michael Sela, immunologist
- Adi Shamir, cryptographer, Turing Award (2002)
- Nahum Sonenberg, biochemist at McGill University
- Igal Talmi, physicist
- Benjamin Elazari Volcani discovered life in the Dead Sea and pioneered biological silicon research.
- David Wallach, biochemist
- Arieh Warshel, chemical physics, presently at University of Southern California: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013)
- 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; also Acting Director 1952-1959)
- 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)
The nonscientists Abba Eban and Meyer Weisgal were assisted by Scientific Directors, as was Weizmann himself owing to his duties as the first President of Israel. The following persons held the position of Scientific Director:
- Ernst David Bergmann (1949-1951)
- Amos de-Shalit (1960-1961 and 1966-1968)
- Shneior Lifson (1962-1966)
- Gerhard M. J. Schmidt (1969)
Full list of 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
- Arie S. Belldegrun (born 1949), director of the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology and is Professor and Chief of Urologic Oncology at UCLA's medical school, the David Geffen School of Medicine[12][13]
- 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
- Alexander Levitzki (born 1940), biochemist
- Mario Livio (born 1945), astrophysicist
- 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
- Nathan Seiberg, physicist
- Adi Shamir (born 1952), cryptographer
- Arieh Warshel, Nobel prize in chemistry (2013)
Access
Train
- From Tel-Aviv downtown, take train from either University, Savidor Center, HaShalom, and HaHagana stations for Ashkelon Railway Station. Get off at Rehovot Railway Station, located next to the campus. Travel time will be about 40 min. To the main gate, it will be additional 5 min walk.
- From Ben Gurion Airport, take train from Ben Gurion Airport Railway Station located at the basement of Terminal 3, and go to Tel Aviv HaHagana Railway Station. Change train bound for Ashkelon and follow the instruction above. Total ravel time will be ~1 hour, depending on train connection.
See also
- List of universities in Israel
- Science and technology in Israel
References
- ↑ Weizmann Institute of Science - Scientific Activities 2010
- ↑ Weizmann Institute of Science - Facts and Figures
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Weizmann Institute of Science
- ↑ Institution resource development, Weizmann Institute of Science
- ↑ The Scientist Staff (1 July 2011). "Best Places to Work Academia, 2011". The Scientist. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
- ↑ Israel's Hebrew U, Technion and Weizmann make list of top 100 international universities
- ↑ "Academic Ranking of World Universities". Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
- ↑ The Clore Garden of Science – A Worlds First
- ↑ "ACM Award Citation / Amir Pnueli". Association for Computing Machinery.
- ↑ "ACM Award Citation / Adi Shamir". Association for Computing Machinery.
- ↑ "Listen to Interviews with 2012 ACM Turing Award Recipients Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali". Association for Computing Machinery. 2012.
- ↑ "Arie Belldegrun, M.D.". David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
- ↑ "Arie Belldegrun, M.D.". Urological Sciences Research Foundation. 2008. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Weizmann Institute of Science. |
- 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)
Coordinates: 31°54′27″N 34°48′33″E / 31.90750°N 34.80917°E
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