TEL AVIV (Press Release) — Tel Aviv University physicist Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob has been elected to the American Philosophical Society — the oldest learned society in the United States — the only non-American among the 33 new members.
Prof. Ben-Jacob is a professor of physics and astronomy and holds the Maguy-Glass Chair in Physics of Complex Systems at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at TAU. He is also adjunct professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University’s Senior Investigator Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP).
Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the society boasts past members including Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Louis Pasteur, and Albert Einstein, as well as American Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. The society is very small and through its entire history has had fewer than 5,500 members in all. It currently has fewer than 1,000 members in all fields of sciences, humanities, and the arts, with only five other international members in physics, making Prof. Ben-Jacob number six.
“This is a great honor,” said Prof. Ben-Jacob. “But it is important for me to say that in my case, like that of many others, my personal achievements are the result of cooperation with others. I had the good fortune to work with brilliant scientists, to guide excellent post-doctorates and advise brilliant dedicated and creative students. I also enjoyed cooperating on philosophical ideas with Prof. Alfred Tauber, without whose encouragement and financial support through the Tauber Family Foundation I could not have reached the achievements for which I was selected. My pioneering research has struggled to receive funding from common research funds.
“The more I learn about the American Philosophical Society, the more surprised I am and the more honored I feel to have been elected,” he continued.
Ben-Jacob is one of the world’s leading experts in biocomplexity, the theory of self-organization and pattern formation in open systems. Ben-Jacob’s honors and contributions to science include the 1986 Landau Research Prize, the 1996 Siegle Research Prize of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the 2013 Weizmann Prize in Exact Sciences. Ben-Jacob is former president of the Israel Physical Society and chairs the Israel Ministry of Education’s Advisory Council of High School Physics Education.
*
Preceding provided by Tel Aviv University.