Micha Hass was born in Russia in 1946. At the age of 2 he immigrated to Israel with his parents. He grew up in Lod. He received his BSc in Physics and Mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1966. After his military service, he moved to the Weizmann Institute where he obtained an MSc and a PhD under the supervision of Gaby Goldring starting a half a century long career in experimental nuclear physics.
After a post-doc at Rutgers University, Micha returned to the Weizmann Institute as a senior scientist in 1978. He was promoted to associate professor in 1983 and later on to full professor. Micha was very active in the life of the Physics Faculty and of the Weizmann Institute. He served as head of the Board of Studies of the Physics Faculty, head of the Accelerator Laboratory, head of the Physics Services and head of the Committee for Services and Infrastructure of the Weizmann Institute.
Most of his career was devoted to nuclear structure studies, exploiting the hyperfine interaction and investigating fundamental properties of nuclei in particular magnetic moments, quadrupole moments, g-factors and mean-lives. Later on, with the advent of radioactive beams, Micha embarked on the extension of these measurements to exotic nuclei far from the valley of stability, pushing them to the limits of isospin, at both the proton-rich and the neutron-rich limits.
More recently, Micha became involved in the field of nuclear astrophysics, conducting experiments of interest to the understanding of solar fusion reactions, solar neutrinos and the issue of nucleo-synthesis. In particular, he performed an extensive series of experiments at the Weizmann Institute Van de Graaff accelerator to measure the cross sections of the 7Be(p, )8B and the 3He(4He, )7Be reactions that are essential for understanding the oscillations of solar neutrinos.
In the last years, he expressed a strong interest in the scientific opportunities offered by the SARAF high current 40 MeV proton and deuteron accelerator facility under construction in the Soreq Nuclear Research Center at Yavne. In particular, he planned the use of radioactive beams produced at this facility for nuclear structure and astrophysics measurements.
In addition to the experimental work carried out at the Weizmann accelerator facilities, Micha collaborated with, and performed experiments at, several leading laboratories worldwide including GANIL (France), GSI (Germany) and ISOLDE at CERN.
Micha passed away suddenly from cardiac arrest on 2018. He was survived by his wife Ellen, his daughter Elisa and his son David.