Mario Livio

Mario Livio was born in 1945 in Bucharest

Livio was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1945. His mother Dorothea was a singer and his father Rubio Liviu was a writer, director and theater critic. His parents fled Romania for political reasons, and at age 5 he left with his grandparents and settled in Israel, later rejoining his mother in Tel Aviv.

He attended Tichon Ironi Hey in Tel Aviv. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from the Hebrew University, a master's in theoretical particle physics from the Weizmann Institute, and a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics from Tel Aviv University. During this period he also taught at Tichon Ironi Hey.

He served in the IDF as a transport NCO in Central Command and later served as a reserve medic in three wars.

From 1981 to 1991 he was a full professor of physics at the Technion. He then moved to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, where he studied supernovae, the expansion of the universe, black holes and planet formation. With colleagues he predicted that merging neutron stars produce gamma-ray bursts, gravitational waves and heavy elements.

Since 2010 he has focused on the emergence of life in the universe. His popular books include The Golden Ratio, Is God a Mathematician? and Galileo and the Science Deniers. He is married to Sofie, a microbiologist, and they have 3 children.