The Weizmann Institute of Science
Aspen Discovery Forum:

Prof. Alon Chen is the 11th President of the Weizmann Institute of Science. He was Head of the Department of Neurobiology (since renamed Department of Brain Science) from 2016-2019. He was also Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, and served as the Head of the Max Planck Society – Weizmann Institute of Science Laboratory for Experimental Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurogenetics. He is an External Member of the Max Planck Society an adjunct Professor at the Medical School of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

Prof. Chen received a BSc in Biological Studies, with distinction, from Ben-Gurion University in 1995, a PhD from the Weizmann Institute in 2001, with distinction), and an MBA from Ben-Gurion University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. In 2005, he joined the faculty of the Weizmann Institute. He is the incumbent of the Vera and John Schwartz Professorial Chair in Neurobiology.

Prof. Chen’s research focuses on the neurobiology of stress, particularly the mechanisms by which the brain regulates the response to stressful challenges and how this response is linked to psychiatric disorders.

He is the recipient of both the Rothschild and Fulbright fellowships. Upon joining the Weizmann Institute faculty, he received the Alon Fellowship, the most prestigious Israeli fellowship for returning scientists. He received the Ben-Gurion Award, bestowed on individuals for their contributions to Ben-Gurion University, the community, and the Negev, in 2022.

Prof. Roee Ozeri was appointed Vice President for Development and Communications in December 2019.

Professor Ozeri’s research centers on ultra-cold atoms, a unique state of matter with significant potential for advancing quantum computing platforms. These platforms, rooted in the principles of quantum mechanics, are anticipated to far surpass conventional computers in performance and greatly enhance information storage capabilities. In a recent breakthrough, Prof. Ozeri and his team succeeded in building a quantum computer–one of about 30 such machines in the world, and one of less than 10 to rely on an advanced technology known as ion traps. An even larger quantum computer is currently being developed in the Ozeri lab.

Prof. Ozeri was born in Israel and earned a BSc in physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his MSc and PhD degrees in physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. He joined the Weizmann faculty in 2007 after conducting postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado in the group of 2012 Nobel Laureate Prof. David Wineland.

Among his numerous awards and honors, Prof. Ozeri received the Rosa and Emilio Segre Research Award (2019), the Morris L. Levinson Prize in Physics (2012), and the prestigious Rothschild Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2003). His articles have been published in prestigious scientific and physics journals such as Nature, Science, and Physical Review Letters.

He is married to Carmit and has three children, Omer, Tamar, and Netta. His hobbies include sea-kayaking, running, cooking, reading, and writing short stories.

Prof. Ido Amit joined the Department of Immunology (now the Department of Systems Immunology) at the Weizmann Institute in 2011. He is the founding director of the Center for Immunotherapy Reserach (2021) and the incumbent of the Eden and Steven Romick Professorial Chair.

Prof. Amit is a world leader and pioneer in the fields of single-cell genomics and clinical big-data analytics. He has spearheaded the application of these technologies to generate a comprehensive “google map” of the entire immune system and how it is perturbed in disease. Prof. Amit’s research addresses some of the most fundamental questions in immunology. Working with the leading biopharmacological companies, his discoveries are driving immense innovation in targeted immunotherapy for autoimmune disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer which will lead to the next generation of immunotherapy treatments. In addition, Prof. Amit is renowned in the science community as a leader in immunogenomics, a new field aimed at detecting and engineering specific immune activity to combat disease.

Born in Kibbutz Hazor, Prof. Amit earned his PhD in biological regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2007 and completed a four-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011.

Prof. Amit is the recipient of numerous awards for academic and scientific excellence, including the Michael Bruno Memorial Award from the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2020), the Sanofi-Institute Pasteur Junior Award (2019), recognition as an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2017), the EMBO Gold Medal Award (2016), the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation (2016), and the Rappaport Prize (2016) for his work in revealing the function of the immune system. He was elected as a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2017.

Prof. Amit enjoys hiking and spending time with his family, as well as road and mountain biking.

Prof. Ron Milo joined the Department of Plant Sciences (now the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences) at the Weizmann Institute in 2008. He is the Weizmann Institute’s Dean of Education, as well as the director of the new Institute for Environmental Sustainability, and the incumbent of Charles and Louise Gartner Professorial Chair.

Prof. Milo aims to understand and explain the world using numbers as a sixth sense. He brings the tools of systems biology to bear on the challenges of sustainability, with a focus on understanding energy and carbon transformations in quantitative terms. The Milo lab employs a combination of computational and experimental synthetic biology tools with a focus on carbon fixation, the biological process that incorporates carbon dioxide into organic compounds. He works 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. His findings were cited in the recommendation for updating the US food pyramid in 2015.

Prof. Milo earned a BSc in physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1996), an MSc in electrical engineering at Tel Aviv University (1999), and a PhD in biological physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science (2005) under Prof. Uri Alon.

In 2010, Thomson Reuters recognized the impact of a highly cited article Prof. Milo had authored, noting it as one of the most significant of the first decade of the 21st century. Prof. Milo has received numerous academic and scientific awards. In 2014, he was elected as a member of the Israel Young Academy (part of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities) and chosen as the head of the Israel Young Academy (2015-2017). He is the author of the highly influential book, Cell Biology by the Numbers, and the recipient of the 2024 Rothschild award.

Prof. Milo enjoys playing the harmonica and hiking with his wife, Hilla, and their three daughters, Geffen, Yaara, and Rimon.

Dr. Sivan Refaely-Abramson joined the Department of Materials and Interfaces (now the Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials science) in 2018 and is the incumbent of the Leah Omenn Career Development Chair.

Dr. Refaely-Abramson’s research applies theoretical computational approaches to questions in quantum science for various purposes. These include renewable energies, light-matter interactions, and information science. She characterizes the back-and-forth between theoreticians (like herself) and experimentalists in chemistry and physics as collaborative puzzle solving. The players are trying to determine how different material properties and observable dynamic variables can be selected, organized, and arranged to produce the most effective materials.

Dr. Refaely-Abramson earned her BSc magna cum laude from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007, within the Exact Sciences Combined Honors Program (chemistry and physics). She earned her MSc (2011) and PhD (2015) at the Weizmann Institute of Science, under the supervision of Prof. Leeor Kronik in the Department of Materials and Interfaces. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where she studied advanced first-principles calculations of excited-state phenomena in complex systems, under the guidance of Prof. Jeffrey Neaton.

Dr. Refaely-Abramson has published and presented extensively on excited-state phenomena, and has received numerous awards and honors for her research, including the prestigious Krill Prize (2022), the Alon Fellowship (2019), and an Israeli National Postdoctoral Award for Advancing Women in Science. She also serves as a member of the Weizmann Institute of Science Artificial Intelligence Flagship Steering Committee.

She is married with three children.

Dr. Einat Segev joined the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the Weizmann Institute in July 2017.

Dr. Segev investigates bacteria in laboratory model systems mirroring marine environments to uncover overlooked microbial physiologies and metabolic capabilities. For decades, microorganisms have been extensively studied in relation to human health, often cultivated in lab settings with rich media and moderate temperatures resembling the human body. However, their evolutionary history spans millions of years in vastly different environments, particularly in the ocean where temperatures are lower and nutrients scarce. In such conditions, bacteria have relied on partnerships with microscopic algae for essential nutrients.

Dr. Segev’s research demonstrates the importance of studying microorganisms within their environmental context. Her studies have revealed bacterial communication with algal partners through various chemical signals, forming diverse “microbial languages” that facilitate interactions with hosts, including plants and humans. Dr. Segev’s work has also uncovered how bacteria accelerate growth in response to these signals. These findings offer exciting prospects for agriculture and human health, where manipulation of bacterial growth based on this understanding can be applied.

Dr. Segev completed her BSc magna cum laude in biology and geology (2003), her MSc in earth sciences (2005), and her PhD in microbiology (2012), all at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She followed this with a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, which she completed in 2017.

In 2024, Dr. Segev was elected as an EMBO Young Investigator; she also received two grants from the European Research Council (2023 and 2024). She won the Peter and Patricia Gruber Award for a promising young scientist at the Weizmann Institute (2018) and the Hirsch Prize of the Israel Society of Microbiology for original research (2011). In addition, Dr. Segev was awarded postdoctoral fellowships by the Human Frontier Science Program (2014), EMBO (2013), and the Weizmann Institute’s Israel National Postdoctoral Award Program for Advancing Women in Science (2013). During her PhD, she received a scholarship from 2007 to 2011 for outstanding students in the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine and won the annual award of the Israel Association of University Women in 2007.

Dr. Segev and her two children live on campus and enjoy everything that the Weizmann community and beautiful campus have to offer.