Leslie Leiserowitz

Leslie Leiserowitz was born in 1934 in Johannesburg

Leiserowitz was born on April 9, 1934, in Johannesburg, South Africa. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town. He worked briefly as an electrical engineer and then completed a master's degree in physics in X-ray crystallography under Reginald William James.

In 1959 he came to Israel and joined the X-ray crystallography group of Gerhard Schmidt at the Weizmann Institute as a doctoral student. His research dealt with the structure of molecular crystals and with thermochromism. From 1966 to 1968 he set up an X-ray crystallography department for organic chemistry at the University of Heidelberg, at the invitation of Heinz Staab.

In 1968 he returned to the Weizmann Institute faculty, and in 1983 he became a full professor. His work covers crystal engineering and interactions between molecules. With Meir Lahav he studied how added impurities control the formation and growth of crystals, and he also studied thin molecular films at DESY in Hamburg.

He also works on malaria research, including how quinoline drugs block the growth of hemozoin crystals. With Ronit Buller he used computer simulation to model this growth, which helped explain how some antimalarial drugs act. He is married to Ruhama and has 3 daughters.