Scientists

Itay Halevy is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann institute who studies the long-timescale evolution of Earth systems. In his research, Prof. Halevy deciphers the chemical and isotopic fingerprints of the biogeochemical processes encoded in the rock record. With a mechanistic understanding of these processes and how they have varied through geologic time, he attempts to shed light on topics ranging from the most basic controls on Earth’s surface environment to the most extreme episodes in the chemical, biological and climatic evolution of the planet.

Prof. Halevy earned BSc degrees in Geology and Computer Science from Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, and his MSc and PhD in Geochemistry from Harvard University, where he was the recipient of a Fulbright Graduate Fellowship, a Harvard University Origins of Life Initiative Fellowship, and NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, among other awards. For his postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology, he was awarded the Texaco Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Sussman Center for Environmental Sciences Fellowship from the Weizmann Institute.

Prof. Halevy joined the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2011. He was awarded the Sir Charles Clore Prize for Outstanding Appointment in the Experimental Sciences (2011), a Yigal Alon Fellowship from the Israeli Council for Higher Education (2012), the Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research from the Wolf Foundation (2016), and the Scientific Council Prize for Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute (2018). 

In 2020, Prof. Halevy was elected to the Israel Young Academy, and in 2023 he was elected Chair of the Young Academy. He has been awarded two starting grants from the European Research Council and serves as Chair of the Climate Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Education. In addition, he is a member of the National Committee for Planning and Budgeting’s Climate and Energy Panel, and a member of the Steering Committee on Climate Risks on behalf of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Dr. Michal Leskes is a senior scientist at the department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science at the Weizmann Institute. She completed her PhD with Prof. Shimon Vega at the Weizmann Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Clare Grey at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Her research group focuses on elucidating the functioning mechanism of energy storage and conversion materials and the development of new analytical tools based on high sensitivity magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Insight gained from the developed methodologies provide unique atomic-molecular level correlation between the structure and function of state-of-the-art battery materials and enables development of improved energy storage systems.

Dr. Leskes received a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (2012-2013), the Yigal Alon fellowship from the Israeli Council of Higher Education (2015-2018), the Abragam Prize from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance (2019), an ERC starting grant (2019), the Early Career award from the Israel Vacuum Society (2020), the Weizmann Institute Scientific Council Award in Chemistry (2022), and the Guy Sella Award in Energy Research (2023).

Prof. Avraham Levy earned his BSc and MSc in field crops and plant breeding at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1987, he received a PhD in plant genetics from the Weizmann Institute. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University and INRA Versailles, after which he joined the Weizmann Institute. He is a member of the Plant and Environmental Sciences department and served as the Dean of the faculty of Biochemistry until 2022.

Dr. Levy’s research probes the structure and evolution of the plant genome, in particular the genetic mechanisms responsible for biodiversity in the plant kingdom, including DNA repair and recombination, hybridization, and polyploidy. He develops advanced genetic manipulation techniques to engineer plants in a precise manner towards food security and sustainability. He serves on the scientific board of agro-biotech companies, on the editorial board for Plant Cell, and is an associate member of the French Academy of Agriculture. Dr. Levy leads the Green Campus Initiative at the Weizmann Institute. 

Prof. Milo and his group bring the tools of systems biology to bear on the challenges of sustainability, with a focus on understanding energy and carbon transformations in quantitative terms. They work to understand fundamental design principles of carbon fixation and photosynthesis, with the goal of improving the efficiency of food and fuel production. Prof. Milo applies Big Data analysis tools to clarify our understanding of the biosphere and human impact on the living world, including the ecological costs of food production. The Milo lab has studied the environmental footprint of various food systems, and is developing the theoretical and experimental basis for engineering bacteria that can fix CO2 and transform it into food or feed.

Prof. Yinon Rudich is a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His research focuses on studying aerosol chemistry and physics, and the effects of aerosols on climate and human health. He has established a state-of-the-art aerosol Physics and Biology lab to study the optical properties, ice nucleation, and health effects of aerosols, and he has also created a national pollutants database to study the health effects of exposure to pollutants.

The overarching goal of Dr. Rudich’s research is to provide a mechanistic understanding of the connections between the physical and chemical properties of aerosols to their ability to nucleate ice, absorb and scatter solar radiation, and induce health effects. Dr. Rudich also studies the aerobiome – bacteria, viruses and fungi that are transported in the atmosphere by dust and winds, and their potential impacts on ecosystems and human health.

Dr. Rudich has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and serves as an expert reviewer for the European Commission and ERC. He is a member of the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch Programme’s ARCH (Air Pollution, Climate Change, Health Effects Nexus) working group, is on the scientific advisory board of SPARTAN, and is a member of the international steering committee of the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR II). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Society (AGU), the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and Academia Europea.

Prof. Assaf Vardi earned a BSc in Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from which he also received an MSc in Environmental Sciences and PhD in Molecular Ecology. After conducting postdoctoral research at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and at Rutgers University, he joined the Weizmann Institute faculty in 2010 where he is the incumbent of the Edith and Nathan Goldenberg Career Development Chair. He was also appointed an Adjunct Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (US). Prof. Vardi has received several awards, including two Reiger Foundation awards, a Marie Curie fellowship, and a Legacy Heritage Brain Drain fund award from the Israeli Science Foundation. In addition to support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Simons Foundation, and Israeli Science Foundation, he has been granted a Human Frontiers Award, and the prestigious ERC young, consolidator and advanced investigator grants from the European Union.

 Prof. Vardi elucidates the molecular mechanisms that drive microbial interactions in the marine environment. Microbial interactions that regulate the fate of algal blooms play a profound role in determining carbon and nutrient cycling in the ocean and feedback to the atmosphere.  Prof. Vardi studies some of the key mortality agents of algal cells such as marine viruses, bacteria, and grazers. The specific interactions between algae and their pathogens will lead to the demise of algal blooms and will have a unique footprint on the environment. Assaf and his team study how each interaction will differentially influence not only the surrounding microbial population, but also the carbon export to the deep ocean, recycling of nutrients available to the rest of the marine organisms, biodiversity, and even how they may influence the atmosphere above the decaying bloom. The latter occurs when dying algal cells produce volatile molecules that are emitted to the atmosphere as aerosols and can modulate cloud formation.

 While most of the basic science is performed in the Vardi lab and allows for interesting discoveries of the biology and chemical ecology of microbial interactions, Assaf and his team are passionate about testing their findings in the real world, in natural populations in the ocean. To measure microbial interactions within algal blooms, they study specific genetic and metabolic biomarkers that are induced during a myriad of interactions. During field campaigns, Prof. Vardi’s research group detect and measure these biomarkers and couple them with bloom dynamics and environmental parameters, to gain a holistic view on the bloom ecosystem.

Prof. Milko van der Boom received his BSc from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, and MSc in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He earned his PhD degree with distinction from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, working with Prof. David Milstein. After three years of postdoctoral research with Prof. Tobin J. Marks at Northwestern University in the US, he became a Faculty member in the Weizmann Institute's Department of Organic Chemistry. 

He is currently the incumbent of the Bruce A. Pearlman Professorial Chair in Synthetic Organic Chemistry and the Head of the Department of Chemical Research Support at the Weizmann Institute. He has been awarded the Alon Fellowship from the Israel Council for Higher Education, the Gutwirth Award, and the Israel Chemical Society Prize for Young Scientists. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

Plant Metabolome in Action
The Aharoni lab conducts research on uncovering the molecular pathways that produce plant secondary metabolites—chemicals produced by plant species that help them cope with changes and stress in their environment. These metabolites hold the secrets to many biological processes that are beneficial to humans and plants alike, and have practical applications for fighting world hunger and malnutrition, investigating the use of cannabis and other psychoactives for biomedicine, and developing sustainable energy sources. His lab’s cutting edge high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques has been used, among other things, to understand the correlation between genes, metabolism and other traits, and is helping scientists and breeders produce improved tomato varieties.
 

Circadian Clocks and Metabolism
Compelling evidence points toward a tight intertwining between circadian rhythms and metabolism. Circadian clocks play a major role in orchestrating daily metabolism, and their disruption can lead to metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. Concomitantly, clocks are tightly coupled to cellular metabolism and respond to feeding cycles. The group’s overarching goal is to uncover molecular mechanisms within the core clock circuitry in respect to cellular metabolism and identify metabolic cycles in mammals.
 

Hydrology
The group’s research focuses on developing realistic quantitative models and unique laboratory experiments to quantify fluid flow, and chemical transport and reactions in fractured and porous geological formations, soils, and other porous media. In parallel, it investigates a wide range of methods for catalytic treatment of organic and inorganic pollutants in water. 
 

(Bio)Opto-electronic Materials & Interfaces
Optoelectronic materials, and semiconductors in particular, are the building blocks for most of today's high-tech gadgets and instruments. The group provides unique insights into materials properties, due to their extreme sensitivity to even the slightest changes of composition. It focuses our research on bio-molecular electronics and optoelectronic materials. 
 

Atmospheric, Oceanic and Climate Dynamics
The weather and climate on Earth are mostly controlled by the large-scale flow in the atmosphere and ocean. Thus, to improve our preparedness for future human-induced climate change it is critical to understand the physical mechanisms underlying the impacts of human and natural activities on the large-scale flow. To investigate this, the group uses theoretical understanding of the large-scale climate dynamics and thermodynamics states and examines observations and state-of-the-art climate models in historic and future periods.
 

Microbial Systems Biology
Dr. Dar studies the heterogeneous bacterial communities that grow on plants, and which play an important, yet little-studied role in agriculture. Par-seqFISH (parallel sequential fluorescence in situ hybridization), a tool he developed with together with his postdoctoral advisors at Caltech, measures bacterial activities using gene expression, making it possible to track what is happening within bacterial communities in space and time, directly, in their native contexts and at a micrometer resolution. The knowledge gained from such an up-close and personal view of bacterial organization and activities presents a vast resource for sustainable technologies in a rapidly changing world. 
 

Surface Physics and Interface Chemistry
The group studies the physical and chemical phenomena on model catalyst surfaces. Its studies are relevant to the current grand challenges of energy and environment, and to potential roadmaps for the hydrogen economy, methanol economy, oil economy, and carbon dioxide utilization.
 

Plant Developmental Genetics
Prof. Eshed and his lab study plant architecture, which is critical for optimal use of light energy, for balance between reproductive and vegetative growth, and ultimately, productivity. Understanding these principles may offer agriculture new means by which to optimize plant growth and increase drought and pest resistance.

Laboratory for Protein Design
The group’s research combines computational methods development, including atomistic modeling and AI, and structural and biochemical wet-lab work. It probes our understanding of protein design principles by designing new proteins and testing their activities in the lab. The group is committed to making methods accessible to all scientists, and its algorithms have enabled the group and researchers from around the world to design antibodies, vaccines, therapeutic enzymes, and enzymes for green chemistry. The group is excited to see protein design enabling the next wave of discovery in basic and applied biomolecular research.
 

Stress and Innate Immune Responses in Plants
Prof. Fluhr studies how plants and their fruit survive in a hostile world full of fungal pathogens. One of his lab’s projects involves studying the battle that occurs when a pathogen attacks a tomato fruit. Uncovering the fungal genes that are necessary for their survival has led to novel ways to control fungal growth by suppression of their expression. His investigations also led to the discovery of a molecule produced by plants in certain stress pathways that led to cell death. They found that controlling the molecule’s expression helped improve plant survivability.
 

Materials of the Ocean
The group studies mineralization processes in two of the most abundant algal groups of modern oceans, diatoms, which form silicified cell wall with nano-patterning unequaled by any synthetic system, and coccolithophores, which form calcified scales with unprecedented control over crystal orientation and morphology.
 

Electrosynthesis & Catalysis Laboratory
The group focuses on expanding the retrosynthetic analysis toolbox of organic chemists through the development of new and practical chemical reactions driven by synthetic electrochemistry, catalysis, and reagent development.
 

Solution Deposition of Semiconductors for Photovoltaics
The group studies nanoporous solar cells using inorganic semiconductors as the light absorbing element. It also investigates solution deposition of semiconductor films (chemical bath and electrodeposition), both to understand the deposition mechanisms and to learn to control the properties of the films, as well as for their use in our solar cells, which the group fabricates mainly using these methods. 
 

Nanotubes and Nanowires
The group’s research focuses on the organization of one-dimensional nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, inorganic nanotubes and nanowires; their integration into functional nanosystems (mechanical, electronic, electromechanical, optoelectronic, electromagnetic, thermal, etc.); and their characterization by mechanical, electrical and optical measurements at the nanometer scale.
 

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
The group studies geophysical fluid dynamics, including the general circulation of the atmosphere; storm track dynamics; formation of zonal jets; dynamics on giant planet atmospheres and interiors; exoplanet atmospheric dynamics; geostrophic turbulence; and climate dynamics.
 

Geochemistry Clean Lab
The group focuses on discovering past environmental changes and the interaction between land and ocean by analyzing the chemical composition of sediments and water.
 

Weizmann Tree Lab
Studying trees and forests with a wealth of measurements and details, Dr. Klein and his group are able to capture the whole picture of how trees process water, air, and carbon, and gain more understanding about how trees and ecosystems adapt to the stress of drought. His discoveries have shed new light on how trees cycle water and nutrients between leaves, stems, and roots— and have even shown evidence for a certain amount of ‘carbon trade’ between the roots of trees located nearby each other.
 

Cloud Physics
The group explores the physics of clouds and rain as well as ocean-atmosphere interactions and nonlinear dynamics. Its research ranges from theoretical exploration of differential equations through numerical simulations of clouds and cloud fields, satellite data analysis, field measurements, and remote sensing. The group develops and merges approaches from fluid dynamics, complex systems, radiation transfer,  cloud microphysics, computer vision, and statistics.
 

Quantum Theory of Materials
The group's research is focused on understanding unique properties and behavior of materials and interfaces, using first principles quantum mechanical calculations based mostly on density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory.
 

Dielectrics, Electromechanics, Ion-Conductors
The group "teaches" materials to exhibit very unusual elastic and electrical properties. It has investigated rubber-like-ceramics, self-organization of nanocrystalline ferroelectric grains into macro-domains, and formation of non-crystalline polar phase. These projects employ a range of micro-fabrication, structural and electrical characterization techniques.
 

Materials Chemistry Laboratory
The group aims to achieve synthetic modularity in covalent crystals by using molecules as building blocks instead of atoms. It employ strategies from organic chemistry and solid-state synthesis at elevated temperatures to study the dynamic chemistry in the gas phase that leads to the formation of intermolecular covalent bonds and successful crystallization.

Sustainable Energy
The group focuses on sustainable energy, bond activation chemistry, and green homogenous catalysis. Metal-ligand cooperation by aromatization – dearomatization of the hetero-aromatic ligand core of pincer complexes has led to new reactions in the group’s lab that are significant for sustainable energy, such as water splitting, new high capacity hydrogen storage systems, superior biofuel, and low pressure stepwise CO2 conversion to methanol.
 

Plant Biodesign Lab
The Natalio lab combines plant biochemistry and synthetic chemistry to create hybrid systems that integrate desirable properties in plants. For example, using metabolomics tools and tracer molecules, his group was able to pinpoint the sugar-transport molecules in plants that carry the substrates from the roots to the leaves in plants such as mustard and tomatoes. They are using this information to introduce substrates that result in specific properties or nutrient profiles in the plants, with the goal of creating smart, sustainable farming. Their work is contributing to the science supporting the development of nutritionally improved crops that can be used to support plant-based diets and transition away from meat-based products.
 

Catalysis, Green Chemistry, and Renewable Energy Lab
The group’s interest is in the shift of chemical and energy related processes from entrenched high temperature catalysis based on fossil fuels to low temperature sustainable catalysis using electricity and light as renewable energy sources. All this is directed to the prevention of emission of greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide and methane, through abatement and non-carbon emitting reactions.

Sustainable Nanomaterials
The group develops noncovalent nanomaterials that are robust, adaptive, and sustainable - they can be as tough as covalent ones (such as polymers(, and yet can be easily assembled and disassembled, enabling simple fabrication and recycling. The group is interested in material functions, such as filtration membranes, recyclable supramolecular plastic materials, and solar energy conversion.
 

Dynamic Meteorology Group
Which mechanisms govern day-to-day weather variability? Why do some weather events become extreme? How do weather systems interact across scales? How predictable are high-impact events? The group aims to answer such questions by analyzing large datasets and developing novel diagnostic tools and model experiments.
 

Theory of Excited-State Phenomena in Materials
The group works on developing and applying many-body computational approaches to study excited-state dynamics in materials of complex structure. Its aim is to understand the underlying interactions composing and evolving the excited states, and their relation to the relation to the material’s structure and design. 
 

The Malaria Parasite
The group conducts research on malaria-derived exosomes to gain a better understanding of how the parasite sorts its cargo and releases it. The advanced-nano approaches developed in its lab not only yield significant information on one of the most lethal human pathogens, but will further lead to important advances in the field of exosome research more broadly.

Photosynthesis & Plant Engineering and Individuality
Prof. Reich’s group studies plants’ remarkable ability to efficiently utilize a capricious energy source such as ambient light under ever-changing environmental conditions. Insights gained from their investigations into resurrection plants, a special class that can withstand an almost complete loss (~95%) of water, could help scientists engineer drought-resistant crops. They are also using CRISPR/Cas9 technology to remove toxins from nutritious drought-tolerant plants, with the hope of providing safe food to drought ridden regions in Africa and Southern Asia.
 

Sustainable Nanomaterials
The group develops noncovalent nanomaterials that are robust, adaptive, and sustainable - they can be as tough as covalent ones (such as polymers(, and yet can be easily assembled and disassembled, enabling simple fabrication and recycling. The group is interested in material functions, such as filtration membranes, recyclable supramolecular plastic materials, and solar energy conversion.
 

Systematic Discovery of Protein Function

During the last decades, biology has gone through a technology-driven revolution with the emergence of high-throughput methods. Yeast has been an excellent model organism for these efforts, allowing the collection of large amounts of systematic data. However, there remains a huge gap between the amount of data generated and its ability to put forward high quality predictions that can be followed up to obtain true mechanistic understanding of cellular functions. The Schuldiner lab aims to bridge the gap by using high throughput methods in combination with detailed follow up to provide mechanistic understanding of fundamental unresolved questions in cell biology.

Developing Computational Models for Personalized Medicine
The multi-disciplinary team of computational biologists and experimental scientists works in the area of computational and systems biology. It focuses on nutrition, genetics, the microbiome, and gene regulation and their effect on health and disease. 
 

A Bio and Geo Journey Through Microbial Interactions
In marine ecosystems, the interactions between microalgae and heterotrophic bacteria shape nutrient fluxes and the long-term burial of biogenic material in the ocean. These interactions have been occurring for millions of years. To better understand the mechanisms behind algal-bacterial interactions and their role in the environment, the group develops reduced model systems with adjustable complexity. By studying these model systems they can gain insight into molecular and genetic aspects of algal-bacterial ecophysiology.

Isotope Geochemistry and Paleoclimate
The group’s research is in the general field of low temperature geochemistry of sedimentary rocks, with a focus on paleoceanography and continental paleoclimate. The main objective is to understand and quantify past global changes that have occurred in the oceans and the continents on different time scales. The group develops and applies new geochemical tools that can serve as tracers of past environmental conditions and processes in the aquatic system, with the view that actual field measurements of materials that store information about natural systems in the past provide the basis for understanding climate variability and for testing models and hypotheses in the fields of Earth Science.

Life Inspired Materials
The group is interested in understanding the self-assembling behavior of biological materials in living systems. By utilizing natural building blocks such as proteins, peptides, polynucleic acids and their complexes for biomaterials synthesis, it aims to unravel the processes leading either to function or to failure, and the dysfunction of biological contracts at a very fundamental level.
 

Quantum Theory of Materials
The group's research is focused on understanding unique properties and behavior of materials and interfaces, using first principles quantum mechanical calculations based mostly on density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory.
 

From Regenerative Medicine to Cultured Meat
Prof. Tzahor studies novel mechanisms for cardiac regeneration following injury in mammals. While experimenting with muscle stem cells, scientists in the lab discovered a fusing process that led to the creation of large muscle fibers resembling those in whole-cut meat. This revelation led to further collaborative investigations into the fiber production process with the intent of developing animal protein alternatives. A start-up tech company was established to develop the technology for applications in the food tech industry.

Structural Dynamics of Materials
The group is developing a new approach to understanding and controlling material properties at finite temperatures. The experimental group of engineers, physicists, and chemists is dedicated to uncovering the connection between atomic and molecular dynamics and material properties. It combines state-of-the-art optical spectroscopy methods, heat capacity, and electronic transport measurements to demonstrate that thermal fluctuations often profoundly affect the dielectric constant, heat capacity and transport, charge transport, and optical properties of materials.

Ecophysiology Group
The group focuses on biosphere-atmosphere interactions across scales and environmental conditions to understand the processes underlying the response of ecosystems in dry climates to local and global changes. 
 

Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecosystems
Dr. Zeevi combines his research with microbes and AI to see if these tiny creatures can increase crop yields and their resistance to droughts and rising temperatures. By sampling many unique wheat-growing plots and sequencing the DNA of all microbes (bacteria, fungi and viruses) in these plots, Dr. Zeevi and his team are using machine learning to pinpoint the ones that have a positive effect on the crop.

The group also studies how microbial ecosystems are affected by human-made artifacts, and it applies the insights learned from these microbes to devise new ways to protect the environment.