Professor and physicist Daniel Zajfman will be as a guest speaker on June 30 at the closing ceremony of the 2nd edition of the Program in Strategic and Operational Management of Research Centers and Units of Excellence (GESCI & GOSCI) . His intervention will focus on good management practices in a research center and on the challenges of innovation compared to basic science.
Daniel Zajfman joined the Particle Physics Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1991 and in 2006 he was elected his tenth, and youngest president, a position he held until December 2019. The Weizmann Institute is one of the most relevant institutions in the world in terms of cutting-edge research and science.
Under his leadership, the Institute has enhanced its characteristics as an international reference center, prioritizing its high standards of excellence. His management has been essential for the investment of important funds in the development of the Institute’s infrastructures.
In his professional career he has held other management positions, among the most recent: since 2015 he is President of the Davidson Institute of Science Education and since 2020 he is President of the Academic Board of the Israel Science Foundation. In 2001 he was also an external member of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and from 2005 to 2006 he was its Director.
Among his diverse awards are: Guttwirth Award (1984), Levinson Award for Experimental Physics (1999), Emilio Segre Award (2000), Minerva Award Conference (2003), Commander of the “Order of Leopold” (Belgium) (2012 ) and he is a Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019).
Professor Zajfman received a PhD in Atomic Physics from the Technion in 1989 and he went on to do his postdoctoral research at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Zajfman is also title holder of the Simon Weinstock Chair of Astrophysics.