2019 - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

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Researchers from the Technion, in collaboration with Japanese and American scientists, have discovered how cyclic peptides inhibit the breakdown of proteins that help cancer grow and thrive. The researchers believe the strategy they have developed will pave the way for new types of anticancer treatment based on cyclic peptides.

Prof. Ashraf Brik of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Researchers from the Technion, in collaboration with Japanese and American scientists, have developed an innovative strategy for eliminating cancer cells. The research was recently published in Nature Chemistry by Prof. Ashraf Brik of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, Prof. Hiro Suga of the University of Tokyo, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, and Prof. David Fushman of the University of Maryland’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The study is a dramatic milestone in the application of the discovery of the ubiquitin system that led to the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Distinguished Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, and Dr. Irwin Rose. The trio of researchers discovered how unique proteins, which they called the “ubiquitin proteins,” label defective proteins with a “death tag” that leads to their breakdown in protease, also known as the “cellular garbage can.”

Proper functioning of the ubiquitin system is essential for the healthy functioning of the organism, not only in the context of the breakdown of used proteins, but also in many other functions. Disruptions in this system cause serious diseases, including various cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

The discovery of ubiquitin paved the way for a new field of research, and many research groups around the world have been working on the ubiquitin system and harnessing it for developing innovative medical treatments. To date, four such drugs have been approved for the treatment of cancer in general and multiple myeloma in particular. These drugs have already saved the lives of many people around the world, but according to Prof. Brik, “the progress in the study of the ubiquitin system and the development of drugs based on its understanding are very slow relative to its potential.”

The first stage in the normal natural activity of the ubiquitin system is the creation of chains of ubiquitin (polyUB chains) that later label the proteins to be broken down. The problem is that when cancer develops in the body, cancer cells know how to carry out manipulation in the ubiquitin system and exploit it for survival and proliferation.

The strategy developed by the group headed by Prof. Brik was designed to neutralize the ability of the malignancy to perform the same manipulation. This strategy is based on an unprecedented combination of Prof. Brik’s skill in producing ubiquitin chains using advanced chemical methods and Prof. Suga’s method of creating very large libraries of molecules called cyclic peptides. As part of the collaboration, the researchers discovered how these cyclic peptides bind to the ubiquitin chains and thus inhibit the breakdown of proteins that help cancer to grow and thrive. They believe the strategy they have developed will pave the way for new types of anticancer treatment based on cyclic peptides.

Prof. Ashraf Brik holds Jordan and Irene Tark Chair in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. The current study is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Germany-Israel Foundation for Research and Development (GIF), and the Israel Cancer Research Foundation (ICRF).

Security Vulnerability in the Cortana-Alexa Partnership Demonstrates Lock Screen Bypass

Student at the Computer Science Department of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has uncovered a significant cybersecurity risk at the interface between the voice-controlled digital assistants of Microsoft and Amazon

Yuval Ron

A previously unknown security vulnerability in the partnership between voice assistants of Microsoft and Amazon has been revealed by Technion graduate student Yuval Ron and his co-supervisor Amichai Shulman of the Faculty of Computer Science.

“The two companies have created an innovative integration between their voice assistants, which enables the launch of Amazon’s Alexa through Cortana on Windows 10 devices, even when they are in locked mode. For example, Cortana users can talk to Alexa and make online purchases through their Amazon account using voice commands,” says Shulman.

“However, we discovered that this interface also supports the capability of donating thousands of dollars to an arbitrary charity. The danger, of course, is that attackers with physical access to someone’s locked PC could ‘donate’ to themselves without the user’s knowledge.”

But that’s not the only security threat, says Yuval Ron, a graduate student supervised by Prof. Eli Biham head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion and Amichai Shulman. “We encountered another problematic scenario during the sign-in stage,” he says. “When a Cortana user needs to sign into Alexa, the connection was implemented by opening a customized Internet Explorer browser over the locked screen. Such a sign-in mechanism allows attackers to easily manipulate the browser to navigate to malicious websites. If the browser stored cached credentials, the attackers can also hack into the user’s social accounts, like Facebook and Twitter.”

Ron and Shulman reported these security issues to Microsoft on September 1, 2018, and the company fixed it by a server update removing. They removed Alexa from the locked screen, on September 24, 2018.

However, the researchers continued to investigate Cortana and found additional vulnerabilities in its integrations with other platforms such as Spotify. “The connection between Cortana and other platforms expands the attack surface of the locked device, and as we have shown, this surface can be exploited,” says Shulman. As a response to these additional reports by the researchers,

Microsoft decided to disable almost all of Cortana’s skills over the locked screen. It has re-enabled only the skills that have been proven to be safe above the lock.

Amichai Shulman

On June 24, 2019, Ron and Shulman presented their findings in a talk called “Alexa and Cortana in Windowsland”, at the BSidesTLV 2019 conference as part of the CyberWeek events at Tel-Aviv University.

This is not the first time that Technion researchers have raised concerns about security issues in voice assistants. In 2018, Technion students exposed a security vulnerability (CVE-2018-8140) in Cortana. The attack they demonstrated was unprecedented because the students used a voice interface to take over a locked machine. Microsoft fixed the vulnerability based on the information received from the Technion.

This attack on Cortana was created by Yuval Ron and Ron Marcovich, students at the Technion’s Computer Science Department, guided by Amichai Shulman and Prof. Eli Biham, head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion, and with the assistance of security expert Tal Be’ery. The students were invited to present their discovery at Black Hat 2018 – one of the largest security conferences in the world.

Prof. Sivan’s appointment was ratified by the Technion Board of Governors.

He will assume office on 1st October, 2019.

Incoming Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan

The Technion International Board of Governors approved the appointment of Prof. Uri Sivan as the next president of Technion. Prof. Sivan, a member of the Faculty of Physics, was nominated last February by the presidential search committee. His appointment was approved by the Senate Academic Assembly, and the Technion Council – headed by Gideon Frank.

Prof. Sivan will assume office as President of Technion on October 1, 2019, and will replace the outgoing President Prof. Peretz Lavie, who will complete his term after a decade in office.

Prof. Sivan, 64, a resident of Haifa, is married and the father of three. He served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. In 1991, Sivan joined the Faculty of Physics at Technion and he is the incumbent of the Bertoldo Badler Chair. His research has covered a wide range of fields including quantum mesoscopic physics and the harnessing of molecular and cellular biology for the self-assembly of miniature electronic devices. In recent years, his research has focused on the way water orders next to molecules and the effect of this ordering on inter-molecular interactions in biologically relevant solutions.

Sivan has held numerous senior positions at Technion and on a national level. He established and led the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Research Institute (RBNI) at Technion from 2005 to 2010. Two years ago, Prof. Sivan set up the National Advisory Committee for Quantum Science and Technology of the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). The committee outlined the national quantum academic program, which was adopted and launched last year under Sivan’s leadership.

“I wish to thank you for the trust that you have placed in me,” said Prof. Sivan to the International Board of Governors. “I stand on the shoulders of giants and I hope to see far, high, and deep. The President of Technion carries tremendous responsibility for the excellence of the institution itself, and the success of its students, administrative staff, and faculty. We are committed to the State of Israel, its security and economic prosperity. I humbly stand here before you committed to do everything in my power to lead this remarkable institution to even greater achievements as it approaches 2024, a century since opening its doors. Technion will continue to serve as a beacon of pluralism, equality, freedom of speech, integrity, ethics, social justice, environmental consciousness, and inclusion in the global community based on these values.”

Technion awarded honorary doctorates to seven distinguished men and women, including entrepreneur and businessman Sami Sagol, architect Moshe Safdie, ISEF founder Nina Weiner, and Prof. Stéphane Mallat, whose grandfather secured the permit to build the first Technion building in 1911

2019 Honorary Doctorate laureates. From left: Nina Avidar Weiner, Sami Sagol, Moshe Safdie, Prof. Stephane Mallat, Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel, Dr. Stuart I. Feldman and Carol Epstein

During the festive and emotional ceremony, which took place during the annual Board of Governors meeting, Technion conferred honorary doctorates on seven distinguished individuals. The ceremony was held in the presence of Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, Chairman of the Council Mr. Gideon Frank, Chairman of the Board of Governors Mr. Lawrence Jackier, of Canadian Ambassador to Israel H.E. Deborah A. Lyons, French Consul in Haifa Mr. Patrice Servantie, Deputy Mayor of Haifa Mr. David Etzioni, members of the Technion management and Faculty deans.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said at the ceremony that, “The success of the State of Israel in general, and of Technion in particular, rests on a combination of chutzpah, ambition and the courage to ask questions and risk making mistakes. These are the traits shared by the seven laureates receiving honorary doctorates this evening. They don’t all come from cultures where chutzpah is prevalent, but all succeeded thanks to the fact that they dare to think outside the box, ask important questions and strive for satisfactory answers. We are grateful for your heroic efforts to make the world a better place.”

The Laureates

Architect Moshe Safdie is one of the world’s most celebrated architects. During his distinguished 50-year career, Mr. Safdie has created well over 200 awe-inspiring architectural projects that span the globe. “I was born in Hadar Hacarmel in a Bauhaus modernist building, across the street was the Technion”, he said. “With my parents coming from Aleppo and my architecture education being in the west in Canada, I think I merged within me Western European and Eastern traditions. While I’ve received many Honorary Doctorates and other awards, I’m very moved by being honored by the Technion. For me the Technion is home territory, it is literally where I was born and where I grew up. When I decided to be an architect far away in cold Montreal the Technion was always for me the memory of which school of architecture I should have been at.”

Entrepreneur and businessman Sami Sagol was born in Turkey and made aliyah with his family when he was 15. Under his leadership, the Keter Group grew from a small family-owned company founded by his father in 1948 to a global corporation with an annual turnover of nearly a billion dollars. Mr. Sagol, Technion alumnus in chemistry, said: “I started at Technion as a very young student, before my military service. At Technion I received a basis, not only an education, but how to think and what to think in many fields. In this sense the Technion was the basis for everything I did in my future. The Honorary Doctorate degree from Technion is very special to me as it comes after my first degree in engineering and science from Technion, in this sense it closes a circle. The Technion has a very special place in my heart.”

Prof. Stéphane Mallat, who spoke on behalf of the laureates, is one of the world’s foremost scientists in signal and image processing. However, his speech focused on his family’s unique connection to Technion. “The Technion represents for us a family story across three generations. It began with my grandfather, Asher Mallat, who studied in Istanbul. When the project of the Technion was rejected by the Ottoman authorities in Palestine, he was able in Istanbul to reverse the decision and obtain the rights to build the Technion.” My father was always very attached to Israel and was very impressed by the economic effect of the Technion on Israel.”

Prof. Mallat has close ties to researchers at Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science. He said, “This Honorary Doctorate is a high honor from colleagues, but it is for me a gift from the Technion to my family to remember the engagements, the action of my grandfather and of my father for Israel and Technion.”

Nina Avidar Weiner founded the international educational foundation ISEF, which supports outstanding young Israelis from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through the foundation, Mrs. Weiner has empowered a new generation of leaders who are making an impact on Israeli society. “We’ve had a wonderful relationship with the Technion”, she explained. “A minimum of 30-40 students a year at Technion receive scholarships and the results are phenomenal. We have three or four outstanding students that teach at Technion. The award from Technion is very, very special. I’m sure it will be incredibly important for all our alumni, all of the thousands of alumni we have all over Israel to be recognized by the Technion. I’m very grateful for it.”

Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel, President of the University of Würzburg, received the honorary degree for his significant contributions to the study of physics and quantum optics, and for his collaboration with researchers at Technion. He remarked,”The cooperation with colleagues at Technion have enabled scientific studies that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. This Honorary degree from Technion will encourage me to enhance the cooperation in science between the two institutes and beyond this to use this as a means to fuel the exchange of people in Israel.”

Carol Epstein received the honorary degree for her extensive contribution to the State of Israel, Technion and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York. She told the story about when her parents came to Israel in 1959: “My father walked in and sat in a classroom. He didn’t understand a word of Hebrew but he could understand what was written on the blackboard. He was blown away by the level of instruction. He said, ‘I believe if any single entity is going to be responsible for the success of the State of Israel it’s Technion.’

Receiving an Honorary Doctorate is a great honor both of my parents had Honorary Doctorates. Although I’ve received a couple of awards they never got, this is the only one they got that I’ve yet to receive and I think it’s really special.”

Dr. Stuart I. Feldman received an honorary doctorate for his achievements in the world of computers and software design, for his commitment to technological innovation in Israel and for the advancement of scholarships for women in Mathematics and Computer Science in Israel. He said: “Israel has simply been an amazing source of scientific and engineering progress and the Technion is a very clear leader of the pack in Israel. The quality is simply there, the energy is there, the desire to innovate is there. I’d like to express my thanks to Peretz Lavie and Technion for giving me this fantastic honor.”

The Adelis Award for groundbreaking brain research was presented at Technion to Dr. Yaniv Ziv of the Weizmann Institute of Science

Dr. Yaniv Ziv of the Weizmann Institute of Science

The Adelis Brain Research Award was granted last week at Technion to Dr. Yaniv Ziv, a researcher at the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The 2019 Brain Research Award was presented to Dr. Ziv by Rebecca Boukhris and Sidney Boukhris, Trustees of the Adelis Foundation and by Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie. The award ceremony took place at the Technion Board of Governors meeting on June 16, 2019

Prof. Lavie thanked the representatives of the Adelis Foundation for its tremendous contributions to brain research in Israel and for their generous donation to Technion for the establishment of the André Deloro Building for Biosciences, Medicine and Engineering. He said, “The brain, to a large extent, is still a black box, and studies like those of Dr. Ziv give us a glimpse inside that box. This ceremony is an opportunity to congratulate not only the prize recipient but also their mentor, Prof. Michal Schwartz, winner of the 2019 EMET Prize in Life Sciences. Prof. Schwartz also supervised the 2017 Adelis Prizewinner, Prof. Asya Rolls of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, and the lesson here is that it is important to choose the right mentor.”

Rebecca Boukhris, Trustee of the Adelis Foundation, said that “We are proud to support talented young scientists like Yaniv, and in this way promote and encourage brain research in Israel. The future of Israel depends on its young people because today’s youth will build tomorrow’s world, so it is important to encourage young people to ask, learn, demonstrate curiosity, and broaden their imagination. This is the only way we can expand the circle of excellence that Israel needs.”

The Adelis Foundation, established in 2006 by the late Mr. André Cohen Deloro, of blessed memory, aspires to make a meaningful impact on the lives of Israeli citizens and strengthen Israel as a successful, secure and prosperous nation in the following key areas: scientific and medical research; education; and societal welfare. The Foundation supports academic excellence in Israel, and in particular medical and scientific research. In 2015, in keeping with the legacy of the Foundation’s founder and in loyalty to his vision, the foundation inaugurated the Adelis Brain Research Award which grants $100,000 annually to an outstanding young Israeli researcher.

The purpose of the award is to encourage excellence among young Israeli scientists in the field of brain research; to advance our knowledge and understanding of the brain, its functioning, and the diseases connected with it; and to achieve international scientific impact.

Receiving the award: l-r: Rebecca Boukhris, Trustee of the Adelis Foundation; Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, Dr. Yaniv Ziv

Brain research is a leading global scientific research priority.

The award panel of judges comprises senior figures from Israel’s scientific community: Dr. Gal Ifergane, Prof. Moshe Bar, Prof. Illana Gozes, Prof. Eilon Vaadia, Prof. Jackie Shiller, Prof. Rafi Malach, Prof. Noam Ziv, and Prof. Michal Schwartz, veteran leading Israeli brain researchers.

In the award’s fifth year, the Adelis Foundation was both pleased and proud, to witness many high-quality proposals representing Israeli potential in the field of brain research.

The main criteria for the Adelis Prize are excellence, innovation and achievements. The judges had a difficult task, given the diversity of the submissions and their high level. The 2019 award was granted to Dr. Yaniv Ziv, a researcher at the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Professor Jackie Shiller of the Technion presented the judges’ decision:
“We are proud to announce Dr. Yaniv Ziv from Weizmann Institute as the 2019 Adelis laureate. The prize committee found Dr. Ziv’s past and present contributions, his long-term goals, and the overall importance of his research to warrant the prize. Dr. Ziv deals with the one of most fundamental and important questions in brain research, how the brain forms new memories, how it maintains these memories stable despite a constant instability in neuronal function. Dr. Ziv uses the most advanced methods to study the neuronal network with high spatial and temporal precision over time. His methods using novel computational approaches including machine learning yielded exciting new insights about how our memories are represented and stored. Despite being a young researcher, Dr. Ziv is already known worldwide and well esteemed for his outstanding contributions to the field”.

Dr. Yaniv Ziv earned a BSc in biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001. He completed a PhD program in neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2007. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Biology at Stanford University starting in 2008 and joined the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in 2014. His academic and professional honors include the 2007 Otto Schwartz Foundation award for excellence in studies and research, and the Weizmann Institute of Science Award for an outstanding PhD thesis in 2007. He was awarded the Rothschild Foundation postdoctoral fellowship and the Machiah Foundation postdoctoral fellowship. In 2014 he was awarded the Sieratzki Prize for Advances in Neuroscience, and in 2018 appointed CIFAR-Azrieli Global Scholar in the Brain, Mind and Consciousness program. Dr. Yaniv Ziv is married to Dr. Michal Ziv (a clinical psychologist) and has three kids, Romy, Noa and Itamar. Research in Dr. Ziv’s lab focuses on the neural mechanisms of long-term memory.

The main objective of Dr. Ziv’s research, funded by Adelis, is to identify the principles that underlie the storage and organization of information in long-term memory. Towards this goal, the Ziv lab is applying novel optical imaging and computational analysis methods that they have developed. These methods allow tracking the coding properties of large populations of the same neurons over many weeks and analyzing how their joint activity patterns change over time and as a function of experience. Ziv’s current research centers on neural coding in the hippocampus and related cortical circuits that are crucial for spatial navigation and for the formation and processing of memories for places and events. The proposed research aims to represent the structure of relationships between neuronal activity patterns that underlie specific experiences and address fundamental questions that could not have been addressed before. For example: How do hippocampal neural code change during learning, and what aspects of the codes are degraded in forgetting? Can individual neurons be fungible (i.e. mutually interchangeable) for memory storage? And, to what extent are memories of different experiences similarly organized in the brains of different individuals?

Prof. Ilan Marek of the Technion Elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Ilan Marek, Professor of organic chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has been elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Prof. Ilan Marek

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities is the leading body in Israel’s scientific community. It was established by law in 1961 with the aim of bringing together the best scientists in Israel, to nurture and promote scientific activities in Israel and to advise Israeli governments on research and scientific planning of national importance. Prof. Marek was accepted among six new members of the academy that will now have 132 members. “The Academy is blessed with the participation of these elite researchers who can empower it and assist in fulfilling its mission to strengthen science in Israel,” said Academy President Prof. Nili Cohen.

Prof. Marek heads the Mallat Family Organic Chemistry Laboratory at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. His work is concerned with the design and development of new and efficient stereo- and enantioselective strategies for the synthesis of important complex molecular structures. He is particularly interested in developing carbon-carbon bond forming processes, which efficiently create multiple stereocenters in a single-pot operation.

Born in Israel, Marek moved to France with his family when he was one year old. In 1988, he completed his doctorate at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, and after postdoctoral research in Belgium, he received a position as a researcher at the CNRS at the University Pierre et Marie Curie. In 1997, after 34 years in France, he returned to Israel and joined the Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. He currently heads the Mallat Family Organic Chemistry Laboratory and holds the Sir Michael and Lady Sobell Academic Chair.

Prof. Marek has published several hundreds of research articles, edited more than 13 books and won numerous national and international awards including the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences; the Israel Chemistry Society Prize for Academic Excellence; the Royal Society Chemistry Organometallic Award; the Janssen Pharmaceutical Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis; the Alon Fellowship; the Michael Bruno Memorial Award; the Taub Prize for Academic Excellence; and the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education. In December 2017, he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

Technion Congratulates the Honorary Fellowship Recipients for 2019

On June 16, 2019, Technion conferred Honorary Fellowships upon seven outstanding individuals.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said in his opening remarks, “We are here tonight to celebrate seven beloved faces in the album, the beautiful faces of the Technion family from near and far and to recognize our dear honorary fellows.

“Sarah Arenson who, with her late husband Avie, have been devoted members of the Technion family. They helped the Technion preserve the heritage of the design traditions of the built environment;

“Gideon Stein, an exemplary alumnus of the Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering who played a major role in founding Mobileye vision technologies;

“Mitch Julis from Los Angeles and Linda Kovan from Detroit who represent the emerging leadership of the American Technion Society, whose enthusiasm is infectious and who revitalize the support for the Technion in their communities;

“Marlene and Eugene Shapiro from Phoenix represent those who have been involved with Technion for many decades and have been active leaders at every level of the American Technion Society;

“And finally, Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper from Leibnitz University in Hannover, Germany. Thomas is chairman of the German Technion Society, a champion of Technion and of the State of Israel in Germany, and has played a major role in enhancing German-Israeli academic collaboration.”

Sarah Arenson

In recognition of her impassioned commitment to the State of Israel, of her social philanthropy and of her late husband’s monumental contribution to Israel’s built environment; in admiration of her research into ancient Mediterranean cultures and their impact on modern civilization and of her determination to give it documentary resonance; and in gratitude for her beneficent support of the Technion’s Avie and Sarah Arenson Built Heritage Research Center.

Mitchell Julis

In recognition of his deep devotion to the Technion and Israel; in appreciation of his exceptional support of Jewish communities on every level; in gratitude for his enthusiastic championing of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute; and in honor of his selfless efforts to advance the work of the American Technion Society and the Technion for the betterment of Israel and the world.

Linda Kovan

In honor of her active and tireless leadership of the American Technion Society on both local and national levels; with gratitude for her sweeping vision that helped revitalize support for the Technion in her native Detroit; in appreciation for her inspiring commitment to the Technion and Israel, and in recognition of her many important contributions to her local community.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper

In recognition of his bold commitment to championing the State of Israel and its scientific achievements in Germany, of his support for Israel’s life science students, and of his leadership in advancing the breadth and scope of collaboration between Israeli and German researchers; and in appreciation for these and his other contributions to the enhancement of German-Israeli academic engagement, and for his longstanding association with the German Technion Society.

Eugene and Marlene Shapiro

In great admiration for their decades of tireless commitment to Technion and Israel; in recognition of their active leadership at every level of the American Technion Society, and as members of the Technion International Board of Governors; and in acknowledgment of the active and vital roles they have played with such energy and enthusiasm in growing Technion’s circle of supporters.

Dr. Gideon Stein

In recognition of his technological innovation making car travel safer for all and his prominent contribution to vision safety technology as the sensory underpinning of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems; in admiration of his prolific research in the field of computer vision and its profound impact on cutting-edge designs of autonomous vehicles; and with gratitude for his generous donations to the Technion as a role model alumnus supporting his alma mater.

Recipients of the Honorary Fellowship awards for 2019: Right to left:- Dr. Gideon Stein, Eugene and Marlene Shapiro, Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper, Linda Kovan, Mitchell Julis, and Sarah Arenson

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Dr. Gideon Stein

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Eugene and Marlene Shapiro

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Linda Kovan

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Mitchell Julis

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Sarah Arenson

Technion Confers Honorary Doctorates upon Distinguished Individuals

Today, Monday, June 17^th, Technion will confer honorary doctorates for 2019 at the annual Board of Governors event. The ceremony will take place in the presence of President Prof. Peretz Lavie; Chairman of the Council Gideon Frank; and Chairman of the Board of Governors Lawrence Jackier; Senior Management and Faculty Deans.

The recipients of the Honorary Doctorate award for 2019 are:

Carol Epstein

Carol Epstein earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and is a former president of the Cornell Club of Washington and a proponent of Cornell Tech and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. She is a second-generation American Technion Society (ATS) supporter and leader on the local and national levels.

Dr. Stuart I. Feldman

Dr. Stuart Feldman has made pioneering contributions to software systems and programming languages and has left his mark on industrial research. As Chief Scientist of Schmidt Futures, he is responsible for scientific knowledge programs.

Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel

Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel is a highly acclaimed leader in the fields of nanofabrication, physics of semiconductor nanostructures and semiconductor lasers. His academic career spans over 30 years and his research activities have continuously been at the forefront of global research.

Prof. Stéphane Mallat

Prof. Mallat is a global scientific leader in the fields of signal and image processing. He has made fundamental contributions to the development of wavelet theory marking a revolution in signal processing. His research also covers harmonic analysis and machine learning. His academic work has been cited over 100,000 times.

Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIA, is a world-renowned architect, urban planner, educator, theorist and author. Spanning a celebrated 50-year career, Safdie is committed to architecture that is conversant with the geographic, social and cultural elements that define a place and that respond to human needs and aspirations.

Sami Sagol

Sami Sagol was born in Turkey and, at 15, immigrated to Israel with his family. Under his leadership, Keter Plastics, a company founded by his father in 1948, was transformed into a global concern with an annual turnover reaching the billion-dollar mark. A graduate of what is today Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Sami Sagol has contributed generously to his alma mater and specifically to the establishment of the Center for Complex Materials in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering.

Nina Avidar Weiner

Nina Weiner is the co-founder, President and Chairwoman Emerita of Israel Scholarship Education Foundation (ISEF) and is a zealous champion of Israel’s bright young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through ISEF, she has helped to forge a new generation of leaders who are making their mark on Israeli society.

Prof. Stéphane Mallat will speak on behalf of the recipients.

The ceremony will take place today at 8:30 pm in Churchill Auditorium, Technion City, Haifa

For more information, contact Doron Shaham, Technion Spokesperson – Tel. 050-3109088

Zisapel Brothers Donate New Building for Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Brothers Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel, both alumni of Technion’s Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, will donate funds to construct a new building for the Faculty in which they studied.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie announced the gift yesterday evening in the presence of the donors and Haifa Mayor Dr. Einat Kalisch-Rotem, at the opening event of the Technion International Board of Governors annual meeting. Prof. Lavie thanked Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel for their outstanding gift, “Many alumni recognize the significance of their Technion degree only years after they graduate, but Yehuda and Zohar have continuously supported their home faculty since their graduation, and this new gift will enable the faculty to maintain its research status as a global leader.”

From left to right: Prof. Boaz Golany , Yehuda Zisapel, Zohar Zisapel, Dr. Einat Kalisch-Rotem , Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Dr. Lena Lavie
Credit: Nitzan Zohar, Technion Press Office

The new building, to be named the Zisapel Electrical Engineering Building, will be located between the Faculty’s two existing buildings and will help Technion expand and improve its teaching and research facilities as part of the academic development plan for Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The building will serve the Faculty for teaching and research in electronics, computers, and communications, and will function as a hub for basic and applied research for training scientists, students and engineers, and for developing advanced technologies. The new building will have an impact on nurturing excellence in the field of electrical engineering on an international level.

The Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering is Technion’s largest faculty and the largest engineering department in Israel, with over 2,200 students. During its 80 years of existence, the Faculty has educated approximately 15,000 alumni who led the transformation of Israel from an agricultural economy to a high-tech powerhouse. These alumni form the backbone of Israel’s civilian and military knowledge-intensive industries.

From left to right: Scott Leemaster, Prof. Uri Sivan, Prof. Boaz Golany , Yehuda Zisapel, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Zohar Zisapel

The Zisapel brothers, founders of the RAD Bynet Group, have maintained a warm relationship with Technion through the years, helping with financial support and also personal involvement. One of the Zisapel family’s most generous gifts to Technion led to the establishment of the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center, dedicated in 2007 in memory of their late parents.

Yehuda Zisapel, former head of the Technion Alumni Association; initiated the “From Three to Five” project, which helps high-school students complete high-level matriculation exams in STEM subjects; and the “Ofakim l’High-Tech” program (now called “Achievements for High-Tech”), that helps discharged soldiers from Israel’s periphery to pursue academic studies in engineering and science.

Zohar Zisapel has also supported Technion in numerous ways and contributes millions of dollars for children’s technological education and to expose every Israeli child to the world of computers and the internet. Last year, he was named the Israeli Chair of Technion’s global fundraising campaign, which aims to raise US$ 1.8 billion to strengthen Technion’s leadership position in the global arena.

“As Technion alumni, we have been fortunate to contribute to the expansion of research and teaching in the faculty from which we graduated,” said Yehuda Zisapel. “We have been in touch with our alma mater ever since our graduation, and it is our privilege to provide support for the new challenges facing Technion and the State of Israel. The high-tech industry is desperate for engineering and science graduates for its continued growth and prosperity. The new building will welcome scientists, expand the faculty’s research infrastructure, and educate engineers for the Israeli high-tech industry.”

In 2015, Prof. Andrew Viterbi, a founder of Qualcomm and a leading figure in the global digital sector, donated $50 million to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, which is named for him and his late wife, Erna. “It is my great pleasure to join in thanking Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel for their continuing spontaneous generosity on behalf of the Technion, the technological jewel of Israeli academia,” he wrote in a special message. “I particularly appreciate that their current gift is directed toward funding a new building for the Electrical Engineering Faculty, a discipline which I consider to be the cradle of the Israeli technology which has contributed to protecting the nation for half a century and more recently to the success of the Startup Nation.”

“Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel’s generous gift joins several other significant donations that Technion recently received from alumni,” said Prof. Boaz Golany, Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development. “This gift is an important milestone in the process of recruiting alumni to support the institution where they studied. In the United States, there is a time-honored tradition that encourages alumni to support their alma maters, but in Israel we are still struggling to entrench a similar tradition. I view the Zisapel brothers as role models and call on other alumni to follow their example, each in his own way.”

Prof. Nahum Shimkin, Dean of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, thanked Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel in the name of the Faculty for their generous contribution. “The Zisapel brothers, both of whom are graduates of the Faculty, are among the most notable pioneers of Israel’s high-tech industry,” he said. “The generous gift for establishing the Nanoelectronics Center, which is named for their parents Sara and Moshe Zisapel, enabled the establishment of an advanced research center that serves numerous research groups from Technion and elsewhere. The current gift will enable the Faculty of Electrical Engineering to continue training the best engineers and scientists for Israel’s high-tech sector, which needs high-quality human capital in order to continue thriving. I am proud that the Faculty’s main building will carry the name of the Zisapel brothers.”

Umbrella Conference, Attended by Technion Scientists, Closes After Successful Deliberations in Germany

The 33rd Umbrella Conference on Energy Conversion and Storage took place this week in Germany, with the participation of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, the Jülich Research Institute and RWTH Aachen University.

Young faculty prize winners at the conference.

The Umbrella Conference was held at the Jülich Research Institute in Germany, in cooperation with the Technion, Jülich Research Institute and RWTH Aachen University in Germany. The aim of the conference was to promote scientific cooperation and joint research among the three institutions. This is the second year which focuses on energy conversion and energy storage, coordinated with the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP).

The meetings were attended by more than 60 researchers from the three universities, with the highlight being the awarding of prizes to three leading researchers in the field of energy. The prize is awarded annually to young faculty members, and this year is awarded for their achievements in energy research.

The 2019 winners were:

Lior Kornblum of the Technion, for the development of a unique combination of thin layers for energy transformation; Dr. Xiaoyan Yin of the Jülich Research Institute and Francisco Guzman of the Institute for Machine Elements and Systems Engineering at the University of Aachen.

Prof. Wayne Kaplan, the Technion’s executive vice president for research, said at the conference: “This is a significant collaboration of 33 years, with excellent connections among the three institutions, each with its own uniqueness and each contributing to the other with knowledge and skills.”

As part of the program, in the winter the ‘Winter School’ was held in collaboration with the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and this was attended by some 140 doctoral students and lecturers. Organizers are now focussing on the ‘Spring School’ in Germany in the spring of 2020, which has aroused interest around the world. In the next two years, the activity will focus on the life sciences and the connection between Big Data and neuroscience. “The Technion is very proud of the Umbrella partnership that is bringing science and engineering to new heights,” says Prof. Kaplan.