Prof. Jonathan Dorfan is the President and CEO of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. He was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in physics and applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town in 1969 and his doctorate in experimental particle physics from the University of California-Irvine. Upon graduation in 1976, Dr. Dorfan joined the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) where he was promoted to associate professor in 1984, full professor in 1989 and Associate Director in 1994. In September 1999, Professor Dorfan became SLAC's third Director. During which time he was Dean of the SLAC School and served as a member of the Stanford University Executive Cabinet. Prof. Dorfan stepped down from the directorship in September 2007 and remains on at SLAC as Professor and Emeritus Director. From 1980-89, Prof. Dorfan was the spokesman for the MARK-II detector collaboration at the SLAC's PEP colliding beam facility and then at SLAC's Z0 factory, the SLC. Prof. Dorfan led the team that designed and built the SLAC B-Factory, which commenced operations in 1998.
Prof. Dorfan received a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from the University of Cape Town in 2008 and from Technische Universitat Dresden in 2009. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society. He currently serves on many advisory bodies, including the Board of the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Board of Directors of the Large Synoptic Space Telescope Corporation (Vice-Chair), the Advisory Board of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at Oxford University, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich and the Panel on Public Affairs of the American Physical Society (Vice-Chair). His past community service includes the International Committee for Future Accelerators (Chair from 2003-2005).