Scienceדניאל חיימוביץ

Daniel Chamovitz

Daniel Chamovitz is an American-born Israeli plant geneticist who has served as the 7th President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev since 2019.

born 1963Discovering the COP9 SignalosomeThe book What a Plant KnowsPresidency of Ben-Gurion University

Born: 18 April 1963, Pittsburgh
Occupation: geneticist, biologist, botanist
Education: Yale University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hopewell High School

Daniel Chamovitz was born in 1963 in Pittsburgh

Daniel Chamovitz was born on April 18, 1963, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, and finished high school in 1981.

He started college at Columbia University and then moved to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied plant science and earned a doctorate in genetics. In his doctoral work he cloned genes involved in making beta-carotene. From 1993 to 1996 he did postdoctoral research at Yale University, where he discovered the COP9 Signalosome protein complex.

He then joined the faculty of Tel Aviv University, where he studied the role of this complex in plants and animals. In 2013 he founded the Manna Center Program in Food Safety and Security, and from 2014 to 2018 he was Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences. His 2012 popular science book What a Plant Knows was translated in 20 countries and became the basis for an online course.

On January 1, 2019, he became President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. On July 1, 2024, he became head of VERA, the Association of University Heads in Israel. He is married to Professor Shira Yalon-Chamovitz, they have 3 children, and he lives in Hod HaSharon.