Pinhas Alpert

Pinhas Alpert was born in 1949 in Jerusalem

Alpert was born in Jerusalem in 1949. On his father's side his family has lived in Jerusalem for 4 generations, since his great-grandfather came from Slonim in 1867. He studied in his grandfather's cheder, at the Etz Haim Talmud Torah, from 1957 at the Moriah school, and later at the Dugma high school.

Through the academic reserve he studied physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University, in a program that included computer studies. He then earned a master's degree in physics. After the army he completed a PhD at the Hebrew University in 1980, building a model that explained summer afternoon storms over the Sea of Galilee.

He did postdoctoral work at Harvard University with Richard Lindzen, studying the Indian monsoon. In 1982 he joined the faculty of Tel Aviv University. He headed the Department of Geophysics from 2005 to 2008 and the Porter School for Environmental Studies from 2008 to 2013.

His group studies atmospheric dynamics with numerical models, including weather, climate and dust models. He first identified the use of cellular antenna data to monitor rain, a method later applied to flood warnings, fog and humidity. He is married to Rachel and is the father of 8 children.