Faculty
New Faculty Members 2011/2012
2012
Faculty of Jewish Studies 
· Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages
Prof. Michael Ryzhik -
Dr. Adina Moshavi- Dr. Moshavi's research focuses on biblical and modern Hebrew syntax and pragmatics, politeness and argumentation theories, and speech acts. She is the author of "Word Order in the Biblical Hebrew Finite Clause: A Syntactic and Pragmatic Analysis of Preposing," and has published numerous articles in professional publications around the world.
· Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum - A senior lecturer at the Department, and a Senior Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. Prof. Teitelbaum holds a BA in Near Eastern Studies from UCLA and an M.A. and PhD in Middle Eastern History from Tel Aviv University. He is the author of two acclaimed books: "Holier Than Thou: Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Opposition," and "The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia," a study of the early modern history of Saudi Arabia. His comments and expertise have been sought by such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, and many others.
· Department of Bible Studies
Dr. Nili Samet - Dr. Samet's research focuses on the Hebrew Bible, Assyriology, and the Ancient Near East. Dr. Samat who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Bar-Ilan University, was a visiting scholar at the University of Pennslvania Museum of Archology and Anthropology. She is the winner of the 2011 Alon Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers, the Beit Shalom Grant, and many other grants and awards from various institutions.
Dr. Jonathan Grossman- Dr. Grossman’s fields of expertise are in Jewish Philosophy and Bible. He taught Bible at Yeshivat Har Tzion, Midreshet Migdal Oz, and Herzog College before joining the Zalman Shamir Bible Department at Bar-Ilan University. He has a BA in Education from Herzog Teacher’s College, an MA in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University, and a PhD in Bible Studies from Bar-Ilan University. He is the recipient of the Council for Higher Education’s Nathan Rotenstreich Fellowship, and the Mofet Institute Fellowship for research on “Social Issues in the Story of Ruth.”
· Department of Literature of the Jewish People
Dr. Claudia Rosenzweig-Kupfer—Dr. Rozenzweig’s specialty is Old Yiddish Literature in Italy. With a BA from the University of Milan, an MA from the University of Trier Germany, and a PhD from the Hebrew University. She has taught and conducted research at a number of prestigious universities in Italy in Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew Medieval Literature, Modern Hebrew Literature, History of the Yiddish Language, and Judaeo-Italian Languages. She has published articles about Modern Hebrew and Modern Yiddish Literature and translated works by Shalom Aleichem and S.Y. Agnon into Italian.
· Department of Jewish Thought
Dr. Shlomo Sela—Dr. Sela has a PhD in the History of Science from Tel-Aviv University and is now a lecturer in the Bible and Jewish Thought Departments at Bar-Ilan University. His research focuses on Jewish attitudes toward the sciences, with special interest in the history of astrology in the Middle Ages. He is the author, editor and annotator of Abraham Ibn Ezra: The Book of Reasons, A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Two Versions of the Text (Brill 2007).
Faculty of Law
Dr. Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov- A member of the Israeli Bar Association since 2003, Dr, Bar-Siman-Tov holds an LLB from Hebrew University, and an LLM and a JSD from Columbia University. Before joining the Faculty of Law at BIU, Dr. Bar-Siman-Tov was as an Associate in Law at Columbia University, and a Permanent Senior Law Clerk to Justice Dorit Beinisch in Israel's Supreme Court. He is also the winner of a Full bright Doctoral Fellowship, a David E. Fishcman Scholarship and a Morris Fellowship.
Dr. Ori Aronson- Dr. Aronson comes to the faculty of Law from Harvard Law School where he obtained an LLM and JSD. His research specialties are in procedure, courts, institutional analysis, constitutional law, constitutional and political theory, judicial review, multicultrualism, and American law. He is a recipient of the 2011 Alon Scholarship for outstanding junior professors (Israel Council for Higher Education), among other prizes and grants.
Faculty of Exact Sciences
· Department of Computer Sciences
Dr. Avinatan Hassidim - A member of the Israeli Bar Association since 2003, Dr. Bar-Siman-Tov holds an LL.B from the Hebrew University, and an LLM and a JSD from Columbia University. Before joining the Faculty of Law at BIU, Dr. Bar-Siman-Tov was as an Associate in Law at Columbia University, and a Permanent Senior Law Clerk to Justice Dorit Beinisch in Israel's Supreme Court. He is also the winner of a Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship, a David E. Fischman Scholarship and a Morris Fellowship.
· Department of Mathematics
Dr. Nathan Keller - Dr. Keller's research focuses on Combinatorics and the discrete harmonic analysis and its applications to Combinatorics and related fields, including Probability theory, Social choice theory etc. Another specialty field of Dr. Keller's is Cryptography and the design and cryptanalysis of symmetric key cryptosystems. The recipient of the Koshland Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Weismann Institute of Science, Dr. Keller is also the recipient of the Adams Fellowship, the Orbach and the Zuchovitsky Prizes for excellence in PhD studies, and several other accolades.
Dr. Sharon Ruthstein - A Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, teaching General Chemistry, Symmetry and Electron Paramagnetic Resonance, Dr. Ruthstein completed her EMBO long-term postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, and gained her PhD with honors from the Weismann Institute of Science. Dr. Ruthstein is the winner of numerous international scientific awards, and her research focuses on protein structure and function, structural biology, magnetic resonance and metalloproteins.
Faculty of Humanities
· Department of English and English Literature
Prof. Evan Fallenberg - The Director of Fiction for the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing, Prof. Fallenberg is the author of two novels, "Light Fell" and "When We Danced on Water," and translator of many more. He has won or been shortlisted for numerous international prizes. A native of Ohio, he is a graduate of Georgetown University and the MFA program in creative writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is a member of the international faculty of the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at City University of Hong Kong.
Dr. Lior Laks - Dr. Laks joins the Department of English at BIU after having filled several academic positions, including Lecturer for Basic Arabic Studies and Phonology at Tel Aviv University, Lecturer of Phonetics and Phonology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, translator at the Federal News Service in Jerusalem, and Research Assistant at the Heidelberg University in Germany. With a BA and MA in Linguistics and a PhD in Cultural Studies, all from Tel Aviv University, Laks' focuses his research on morphology, phonology, syntax and their interface, and on thematic operations. Laks has received numerous academic grants and awards, among which are several grants from the Shoshana and Zvi Pozis Foundation, the Prof. Rina Drory Award, and the Wolf Foundation Fellowship of Excelling Undergraduate Students.
Dr. Silvia Adler - Dr. Adler is a Senior Lecturer at the Department, after having taught at both Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities. With a BA, MA and PhD in French Linguistics from Tel Aviv University, she is also the recipient of a Postdoctoral Research Grant from the University. She is the winner of the Scholarship for Research in French Linguistics, from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a Scholarship in French Studies and Belgian Culture, from the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others. Dr. Adler has published numerous books and articles both in French and English, and is a sought-after speaker in scientific conferences all over the world.
Faculty of Life Sciences
Dr. Ido Bachelet - Dr. Bachelet is the group leader of a multidisciplinary group developing and studying emerging biologically-inspired technologies. The research spans a wide array of fields, ranging from synthetic biology, DNA machines and computers, nano-robotics and swarm intelligence to architecture, physical computing, design, art and interfaces between the physical and digital worlds. He holds a PhD in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics from the Hebrew University, and has completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT in biological engineering working on termites, and a second postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University working on immunomics and DNA nanotechnology.
Dr. Eitan Okun - Dr. Okun is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Life Sciences, with a PhD from BIU, and a postdoctoral degree from the National Institute of Health in Maryland. His research team is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease and ischemic brain stroke, as well as the molecular mechanisms governing learning and memory processes during aging.
Faculty of Social Sciences
· Department of Psychology
Dr. Elena Stephan - A lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Dr. Stephan holds a PhD in Social Psychology from Tel Aviv University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Psychology in the University of Southampton, England. Dr. Stephan's research focuses on social cognition and motivation: predictions about the future and coping with psychological threat to the Self, psychological distance aspects in interpersonal relationships.
· School of Education
Dr. Iris Ben David-Hadar - Holds a PhD in Education Leadership, Policy and Administration from BIU, and an MA and a BA from Tel Aviv University. Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar at the School of Education at Stanford University. Dr. Ben David-Hadar's research focuses on school finance policy and funding formulas, resource reallocation, the inquiry of the relationship amongst students' performance, students' background characteristics and schools resources, incentives for schools achievement improvement and educational values, equality, equity and justice.
· Department of Economics
Dr. Gabrielle Gayer-- Dr. Gayer has a BA, MA, and a PhD from Tel-Aviv University. She comes to Bar-Ilan University from the University of Haifa where she was an economics lecturer. With her main research interests in decision theory, microeconomics, behavioral economics, experimental economics and political economy, she is the recipient of a number of awards, including a grant from the Zimmerman Fund and the Jeffery Lecture, RUD Conference in Paris.
· School of Business Administration
Dr. Inbal Yahav - Dr. Yahav was previously a visiting lecturer at the Department of Decision and Information Technology, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the interface between operations research and statistical data modeling, in the context of health care applications and online auctions. Her work has been presented at multiple conferences and published in books and journals. Dr. Yahav holds a BA in Computer Science and an MSc in Industrial Engineering from the Technion, and a PhD in Operations Research and Data Mining from the University of Maryland.
Dr. Menachem Abudy—Dr. Abudy specializes in equity based compensation, corporate finance, corporate governance and private firm valuation. He has a PhD from Tel- Aviv University in Finance, and is the recipient of a University fellowship from TAU Faculty of Management, a Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) Fellowship, and a G.I.F Young Scientist’s Program research grant, among others.
· Department of Geography and Environment
Dr. Nir Cohen - Of the Department of Geography and Environment, earned his MA at Columbia University and his PhD at the University of Arizona. Dr. Cohen's research focuses on space, migration and the politics of diasporaic membership, internal migration of ethnic and national minorities, and migration and urban citizenship as it relates to new, non-Jewish groups residing in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area.
· Department of Management
Prof. Yona Amitai-- Prof. Amitai's medical studies were at the University of Bologna and the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University. Former head of the Ministry of Health's Mother, Child and Adolescent Department, his main research interests are public health service for children and adolescents, preventive medicine in children, pediatric environmental health, prevention and treatment of poisoning in children; chemical safety and marine environment toxicology, and pediatricl pharmacology.
Interdisciplinary Studies
· The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center
Prof. Moshe Bar - Prof. Bar is the Director of the The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. He is a pioneer on in both psychology and biology, and a world-recognized expert on complex brain processes such as cognition, expectations, and the effect of emotion on worldview. Prof. Bar uses cutting-edge research methods, including use of fMRI technology (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to research which areas of the brain are active in those processes at various times, and the MEG device (high temporal resolution Magneto Encephalograph) to learn exactly where and when components of the processes occur in the brain.
· The Program of Hermeneutics & Cultural Studies
Dr. Liran Razinsky - Dr. Razinsky's research focuses on psychoanalysis, French literature of the twentieth century, and twentieth century French theoretics. He holds a PhD from the Hebrew University, and has complete two post doctoral fellowships, one at the Hebrew University and one at NYU. He is also the recipient of numerous international scholarships, such as a Scholarship from Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory and a Scholarship from the Center for Austrian Studies for a two-month German course in Vienna. He has published several books and articles, and is a sought-after speaker and lecturer in scientific conferences and professional symposia.
Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee
Prof. Ran Tur-Kaspa—Prof. Tur-Kaspa is an internationally-renowned leader and researcher in liver diseases. With a medical degree from the Hebrew University, Tur-Kaspa was a Fullbright Fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University and a visiting scientist at the NIH in Bethesda. He heads the Department of Medicine and the Liver Institute at the Rabin Medical Center, Petach Tikva, and was Vice-Dean if the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, before joining BIU as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.
Prof. Michael Weingarten—Prof. Weingarten has extensive academic and clinical experience in Israel and abroad. An alumnus of the University of Oxford, he has held a visiting professorship at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and was a visiting scholar in the Oxford University Department of Primary Health Care, and the Centre for Ethics and Communications in Healthcare. A renowned senior family physician, he also headed humanities division at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, before joining the BIU Faculty of Medicine.
Dr. Evan Elliott—A native of California, Dr. Elliot made aliyah after completing his BA at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Elliot joins the Faculty of Medicine following a post-doctoral fellowship in neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute, where he performed research on the epigenetics basis for animal behavior and psychopathologies and on the molecular mechanism underlying Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
Dr. David Enshell-Seijffers—Dr. Enshell-Seijffers, who joins the Faculty of Medicine from the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, specializes in molecular- biology, stem cell and developmental biology, mouse models, tissue and gene expression analysis, FACS sorting, subunit vaccine design and phage-display technology.
Dr. Meital Gal-Tenamy—Dr. Gal-Tenamy explores the mechanism by which viruses cause liver disease in humans and developing strategies to combat these agents. She joins the Faculty of Medicine following post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Virology and Immunology at the University of Texas and the Felsenstein Medical Research Center at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel-Aviv University.
Dr. Hava Gil-Henn—An expert in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Dr. Gil-Henn joins the Faculty of Medicine from the Yale University School of Medicine where she worked as an Associate Research Assistant since 2008. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale, where she was awarded the 2006 Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research for a paper she published in the prestigious Journal Cell of Biology.
Dr. Izhak Haviv—Analyzing the biochemical relationships between cancer victims and the tumors that inflict them are the heart of Dr. Haviv’s work. He comes to the Medical School Faculty after being a visiting scientist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
Dr. David Karasik—Dr. Karasik’s research focuses on the genetics of aging, searching out the genes which are responsible for traits such as bone and muscle mass. .Formerly from Harvard Medical School, he joins Bar-Ilan’s Faculty of Medicine as Associate Professor of Anatomy. Dr. Karasik has served on advisory panels for the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Itay Onn—Dr. Onn completed a PhD at the Hebrew University and two prestigious post-doctoral fellowships at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and the Department of embryology at the Carnegie Institute in Baltimore. He joins the Faculty of Medicine through his expertise in the fields of Molecular Biology.
Prof. Mary Rudolf—Prof. Rudolf, a graduate of the University of London, was a consultant pediatrician at Leeds General Infirmary, and honorary professor of child health at the University of Leeds, before joining the Faculty of Medicine as Professor of Public Health. She is the recipient of a National Health Service clinical Excellence Award.
Dr. Avraham Samson—Dr. Smason, who completed his BSc in Bar-Ilan’s Department of Chemistry and an MBA in BIU’s Graduate School of Business, while he was finishing his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science, joins the Faculty of Medicine, specializing in Bioenergetics and Pharmacology. Dr, Samson was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University. He has published 12 papers in competitive, refereed journals and two chapters in books.
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