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| 1932-1945 | Kibbutz member of Nir David and of Mishmar Ha'Emek |
| 1943-1947 | Student at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Major subject Physics; Minor subjects Mathematicsand Chemistry |
| 1948-1949 | Israel Defense Forces |
| 1949 | M.Sc. Hebrew University, Jerusalem |
| 1949 | Joined the Polymer Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel |
| 1954 | Ph.D. from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, on the subject "Free Energy of Polyelectrolyte Solutions" |
| 1954-1955 | Recipient of Weizmann Fellowship - spent at Cornell University with P. Debye, and at Leiden University, with J. J. Hermans |
| 1958-1961 | Visiting Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel |
| 1959-1960 | Sabbatical in USA with P. Doty at Harvard University, with I. Oppenheim at Convair Laboratories, San Diego and with T. L. Hill at the University of Oregon |
| 1961-present | Professor of Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute; Emeritus since 1979, on "Extension of Service" till 1994 |
| 1963-1967 | Scientific Director of the Weizmann Institute of Science |
| 1963-1979 | Head of the Department of Chemical Physics |
| 1972-1978 | Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry |
| 1974-1975 | Rector of the Open University of Israel |
| 1958 | Recipient of Weizmann Prize in Sciences |
| 1969 | Recipient Israel Prize in the Exact Sciences |
| 1991 | Honorary Fellow of the Open University of Israel |
| 1997 | Doctor Honoris Causa of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| 1999 | Member of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences |
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About 130 scientific publications in polymer science, statistical
thermodynamics,
inter- and intra-molecular forces, theoretical molecular biology,
biomimetics and
origin of life.
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Shneior Lifson was born in Tel-Aviv in 1914. He started his scientific career after devoting 15 years to the Kibbutz, and obtained his M. Sc. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1949, majoring in physics. That year he joined the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he stayed ever since. His thesis on "Free Energy of Polyelectrolyte Solutions" gained him a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1954. He became Professor of Chemical Physics in 1961, and head of the Department of Chemical Physics in 1963. His research interests and contributions included light-scattering of polyelectrolytes; mechanochemistry; statistical-mechanics of polymer chains; order-disorder transitions in biopolymers; empirical force-field calculations of energies, conformations and vibrations of large molecules; design of ion-carriers; statistical mechanics and conformation-analysis of rigid polymers. He is presently preoccupied in the study of the origin of life, viewed as the origin of purposeful organization of matter through natural selection. He served as member of the Israeli National Council for Higher Education; Scientific Director of the Weizmann institute of Science and Dean of its Faculty of Chemistry; first rector of The Open University in Israel and chairman of the committee which initiated it; member of the Fachbeirat of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen. He received the Weizmann Prize in Sciences and the Israel Prize for the Exact Sciences, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Open University of Israel, Doctor Honoris Causa of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the Israili National Academy of Sciences. |