Hagit Messer Yaron

Hagit Messer Yaron was born in 1953 in Ramat HaSharon

Hagit Messer Yaron was born on May 13, 1953, and grew up in Ramat HaSharon. Her mother Tova taught biology. Her father Oded was director general of the Ministry of Labor and Supervisor of Banks at the Bank of Israel.

She studied at Tel Aviv University, graduating in 1977 and earning a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1984 under Yeheskel Bar-Ness. She then did postdoctoral work at Yale University with Peter M. Schultheiss.

In 1986 she joined the engineering faculty at Tel Aviv University, where she became the first woman in Israel appointed full professor of electrical engineering. Her research covers statistical signal processing. In 2006 she proposed using commercial microwave links to monitor rainfall.

She was chief scientist of the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport from 2000 to 2003 and vice president for research at Tel Aviv University from 2006 to 2008. She led the Open University from 2008 to 2013 and was vice chair of the Council for Higher Education from 2013 to 2016. She founded the national council for the advancement of women in science and chaired it from 2000 to 2004.

In 2016 she co-founded ClimaCell, and from 2017 she chaired the BASHAAR academic community. She received the IEEE Medal in 2024. She is married and a mother of 3.