Board Of Directors

Name: Prof. Mordechai Sheves
About:  Born in Tel Aviv, Mordechai Sheves gained a B.Sc. degree in 1969 at Bar-Ilan University (Ramat Gan, Israel) and M.Sc. (1973) and Ph.D. (1978) degrees from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Prof. Sheves carried out postdoctoral work with Prof. Nakanishi of Columbia University, and in 1981 he returned to Israel and the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Organic Chemistry, where he was appointed Associate Professor in 1987, and Full Professor in 1994. In 1992, he served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana), where he worked in the Beckman Institute and in the Department of Biophysics. From 1994 to 2004, Prof. Sheves headed the Weizmann Institute’s Chemical Research Support and from 2004 to 2006, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, and in December 2006, he was appointed Vice President for Technology Transfer. Prof. Sheves is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Landau Research Prize (1977), the Ernst David Bergmann Prize for Chemistry (1985) and the Israel Science Foundation’s prestigious Center of Excellence Grant (1999). At the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Sheves is the incumbent of the Ephraim Katzir-Rao Makineni Professorial Chair in Chemistry. Prof. Sheves has served as the Chairman of Yeda's Board of Directors since January, 2007.

Name: Prof. Haim Garty
About:  Prof. Haim Garty got his Ph.D. degree at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1980. He headed the Department of Biological Chemistry from 1997 to 2001and was the Director of the Josef Cohn Minerva Center for Biomembrane and the Life Science and Medicine Section of the Israel Science Foundation. From 2002 to 2006, Prof. Garty was Vice President for Technology Transfer at the Weizmann Institute and Yeda’s chairman. Since December 2006 he is the Weizmann Vice President. Prof. Garty is the incumbent of the Hella and Derrick Kleeman Professorial Chair of Biochemistry.

Name: Abraham Ben-Naftali, Adv.
About:  Abraham Ben-Naftali, Chairman of the Executive Council and Committee of the Weizmann Institute from 2002 until November 2008, is an Israeli lawyer specializing in corporate law and capital markets. Graduating with an M.J. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mr. Ben-Naftali taught company law for many years.

Name: Prof. David Mirelman
About:  Born in Argentina in 1938, David Mirelman emigrated with his family to Israel in 1949. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1968, and then spent two years as a Research Associate at Tufts University Medical School in Boston. In 1970, Prof. Mirelman joined the staff of the Weizmann Institute's Department of Biophysics (now Biological Chemistry) and since 1985, serves as the incumbent Besen-Brender Chair of Microbiology and Parasitology. In 1987, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Yeda. In 1993, when the post of Vice-President for Technology Transfer was established at the Weizmann Institute, he was nominated to take charge of all aspects of technology transfer of Institute research, in addition to serving as Chairman of Yeda. At the end of 1998, Prof. Mirelman completed his term of office in both these posts, returned to his laboratory full-time, and at the same time was appointed to serve as Dean of the Institute’s Faculty of Biochemistry, a post he held until January, 2004. He also headed the Weizmann Institute’s Y. Leon Benoziyo Institute for Molecular Medicine until January, 2004. Prof. Mirelman is currently the President of the Scientific Council of the Conseil Pasteur-Weizmann.

Name: Dr. Isaac (Tsachi) Shariv
About:  Dr. Isaac (Tsachi) Shariv has been serving as Weizmann Institute of Science’s Vice President for Administration and Finance since December, 2009. Born in Israel, Dr. Shariv earned a B.Sc. in physics and computer science as well as an MBA degree from Tel Aviv University, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Weizmann Institute. In his previous position (2006-2009), he headed the commercial arm of the University of Sydney, Australia. Prior to that (2000-2006), he served as CEO of Yeda Research & Development Co., the Weizmann Institute’s technology transfer arm. From 1994 to 2000, he was CEO of El-Mul Technologies, which develops advanced particle detectors.

Name: Prof. Haim Aviv
About:  Haim Aviv received his Ph.D. degree from the Weizmann Institute (1970) and was Associate Professor (emeritus).He was the founder of several biotechnology companies, holding executive positions in several (Biotechnology General, Pharmos, Predix, Diatech, Novamed and Herbamed).He chaired and was a member of the Israel National Committee for Biotechnology and other advisory committees on this subject.

Name: Mr. Martin Gerstel
About:  Martin Gerstel was born in 1941 in Norwalk, Connecticut. He received a BS degree from Yale University in 1964 and an MBA from Stanford University in 1968.Directly after graduation from Stanford, Mr. Gerstel participated in the founding of ALZA Corporation in Palo Alto, California, a pharmaceutical company based on developing new technologies for controlled drug delivery. Initially vice president and treasurer, he subsequently held a number of management positions leading to his appointment as President and Chief Operating Officer (1982 to 1987), and Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (1987 to 1993). During his tenure, ALZA Exchange listed company with a multi-billion dollar market valuation.Since retiring as CEO of ALZA in 1993, Mr. Gerstel has focused on board and consulting activities with a number of educational, civic and research organizations including, in the United States, the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology, the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford University and, in Israel, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Beit Amir, the Shalem Center, and in Jerusalem Foundation. In the private sector in Israel, he is Chairman of Compugen (a bioinformatics company), Founder/Vice Chairman of Itamar Medical (a medical device company), and a director of Teva Pharmaceuticals (a pharmaceutical company) and Yeda Ltd. (Technology Licensing company for the Weizmann Institute). In addition, Mr. Gerstel is a frequent lecturer and seminar leader in various areas of corporate management and strategy, negotiations and finance.

Name: Mr. Shimon Cheifetz
About:  Shimon Cheifetz received a B.Sc. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and studied Business Administration at Tel Aviv University. From 1972 to 1992, he held senior positions at Maariv-Information Publications Ltd., serving from 1978 as joint CEO of the Maariv group and as a member of the Board of Directors of the holding company. From 1992, Mr. Cheifetz has been an active businessman in the fields of industry, communications and advanced technologies. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Mifratz Flour Mills Ltd., Synel Industries Ltd., El-Mul Technologies Ltd. and Eretz Israel Museum-Tel Aviv.

Name: Mr. Joshua Maor
About:  Born in Israel in 1936, Joshua Maor obtained a BSc degree in Mathematics and Physics and MBA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He later joined the Computing Center of Israel's Ministry of Defense, of which he eventually became Deputy Head.In 1969, Mr. Maor joined IBM, becoming the company's General Manager and Chairman of the Board in 1984. He has also held several senior positions at IBM's European headquarters.

Name: Prof. Zvi Artstein
About:  Born in Tel Aviv, Zvi Artstein received his Ph.D. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1974. After working as an assistant professor at Brown University for two years, he joined the staff of the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1975. Prof. Artstein served as Head of the Mathematics Department from 1986 to 1988, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science from 1989 to 1997, Chair of the Council of Professors in 1998 and Vice President for Technology Transfer from 1999 to 2002. In 2005, he was again appointed Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. Prof. Artstein is the incumbent of the Hettie H. Heineman Professorial Chair of Mathematics.

Name: Prof. Daniel Zajfman
About:  Born in Belgium in 1959, Daniel Zajfman moved to Israel in 1979. He received a B.Sc. in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1989 from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, in atomic physics. After working as a consultant for Elscint in Haifa, Prof. Zajfman spent two years at the Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, as a postdoctoral fellow. He returned to Israel in 1991 and joined the staff of the Weizmann Institute's Department of Particle Physics as a senior scientist. He was appointed associate professor in 1997 and full professor in 2003. Since March 2001, he has been an external member of the Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and in 2005, he was appointed Director in that institute. In November 2006, Prof. Zajfman was elected the tenth President of the Weizmann Institute by Institute’s Board of Governors. He assumed this position on December 1, becoming, at 47, the youngest president the Institute ever had.

Name: Prof. Nir Davidson
About:  Nir Davidson holds a Ph.D degree in Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has worked at the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science since 1994. His research interests include atomic physics, quantum physics and electro optics.

Name: Prof. Michal Neeman
About:  Michal Neeman holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science and B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prof. Neeman is a member of the Department of Biological Regulation, studying vascular development by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).