Uri Sivan

Uri Sivan was born in 1955

Uri Sivan was born in 1955. His parents came to Mandatory Palestine from Poland in 1936. They studied at the Technion because European universities would not accept them as Jews.

Sivan served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. At Tel Aviv University he earned a BSc in physics and mathematics in 1982, an MSc in physics in 1984 and a PhD in 1988.

He worked for 3 years at the IBM research center in New York State. In 1991 he joined the Technion Faculty of Physics, where he holds the Bertoldo Badler Chair. His group used DNA molecules to build an electrical circuit and made DNA based conducting wires and a DNA based molecular transistor.

From 2005 to 2010 he founded and headed the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute. There he and Ohad Zohar inscribed the whole Bible on a tiny silicon chip, which President Shimon Peres gave to Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. He later set up a national advisory committee on quantum science and technology for the Council for Higher Education.

In 2019 he became president of the Technion, succeeding Peretz Lavie. He is married and has 3 children.