Prof. Hagit Messer-Yaron

HAGIT MESSER-YARON received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel, and after a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University, she joined the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University in 1986, where she is a Professor of Electrical Engineering. From February 1, 2000 to March 31, 2003, she was on leave from TAU, serving as the Chief Scientist and the head of the Directorate of Science at the Ministry of Science, Israel. From 2004 to 2006, Prof. Messer-Yaron was head of the Porter School of Environmental Studies, and from November 2005 to September 2008, she served as Vice President for Research and Development at Tel Aviv University. On Oct. 1, 2008, she was appointed President of the Open University.

Prof. Messer-Yaron, fellow of the IEEE, is a world-leading expert in statistical signal processing with applications to source localization, communication and environmental systems. She has published numerous journal and conference papers, including the pioneering publication in Science, "Environmental monitoring by wireless communication networks" (with Artem Zinevich and Pinhas Alpert), and has supervised tens of graduate students.

Prof. Messer-Yaron is also interested in various aspects of higher-education science policy, including ethics, science-society interplay, and commercialization of academic research. Her book Capitalism and the Ivory Tower (in Hebrew) was published in 2008. She is also committed to the advancement of women in science and technology.