About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the benefit of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/science-tips-december-2011/
Dec 01, 2011... Less and less of today’s computing is done on desktop computers; cloud computing, in which operations are carried out on a network of shared, remote servers, is expected to rise as the demand for computing power increases. This raises some crucial questions about security: Can we, for instance, perform computations on data stored in “the cloud” without letting anyone else see our information? Research carried out at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is moving us closer to the ability to work on data while it is still encrypted, giving an encrypted result that can later be securely deciphered.
Jan 07, 2016...
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Sometime in the year 2030, if all goes according to plan, some dozen groups around the world will begin receiving unique data streams sent from just above the planet Jupiter. Their instruments, which will include a device designed and constructed in Israel, will arrive there aboard the JUICE (JUpiter ICy satellite Explorer) spacecraft, a mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate the properties of our solar system’s largest planet and several of its moons. Among other things, the research groups participating in JUICE hope to discover whether the conditions for life exist anywhere in the vicinity of the planet, which is a “gas giant” complete with gaseous atmosphere.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/gut-reactions/
Jul 28, 2015...
Daniel Segrè, associate professor of bioinformatics, biomedical engineering and biology, uses mathematical modeling to understand the microbiome. Photo by Cydney Scott
Daniel Segrè studies very unusual microbes. They don’t live in petri dishes, guts, or on dirty kitchen countertops. In fact, they don’t live in the real world at all. They live in a simulated world on Segrè’s computer.
Genetically identical to their living counterparts, these digital organisms look like a bunch of red, blue, and green blobs on a computer screen, and they feed on virtual nutrients, grow, excrete waste, and die just as they would in the real world. Segrè also works with living microbes, but the advantage of virtual organisms is that he can monitor how nutrients and energy flow among species – something that’s difficult to do in the real world.
Aug 14, 2018...
An ultrasound electrocardiogram
Utrasound equipment has shrunk in both size and price in recent years – so much so that it is now standard in hospitals and clinics all over the world. But today’s ultrasound still requires a highly trained expert to acquire the image and interpret the results, and this has prevented its use in certain settings – for example, in urgent care. In a joint venture they call On-Sight, computer scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a cardiologist at the New York University School of Medicine have teamed up to develop an automated system that guides the operator in acquiring the images and then accurately interprets the results for physicians. This venture was recently awarded first place in the third Echovation Challenge of the American Society of Echocardiography.
Feb 01, 2016... Two years ago, 18-year-old Rebecca Perl never would have imagined creating her own start-up. That all changed when she participated in the Camp Inc. Business Academy, a Jewish overnight camp in Colorado that gives high-schoolers the skills to become future innovators. Partnering with other campers, Rebecca developed the concept for DiabeTECH, a company that would create an app, implant, and insulin pump to make managing diabetes easier. When American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science leaders spoke at Camp Inc., they were so impressed with Rebecca’s idea that they introduced her to world-renowned Weizmann diabetes researcher, Prof. Michael Walker. After moving to Israel this year, Rebecca finally had the opportunity to meet Prof. Walker and visit the Weizmann Institute. Now living in the “start-up nation,” Rebecca shares the genesis of her invention – and how the Institute is helping her make her vision a reality.
Mar 13, 2013...
Prof. Shafi Goldwasser
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 13, 2013—The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) today announced that Prof. Shafrira (Shafi) Goldwasser of the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, will receive the ACM A.M. Turing Award. She receives the Award together with Prof. Silvio Micali of MIT “for transformative work that laid the complexity-theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography, and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory.”
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/israel-s-solar-star-jacob-karni/
Nov 25, 2012...
Israeli solar energy expert Jacob Karni.
Israeli solar energy pioneer Prof. Jacob Karni was born just two years after Israel became a state, in 1950. Already back then, the country’s leaders were tangibly aware that Israel needed to develop its human resources in order to build a country that was severely lacking in energy and water.
Unlike some kids who have their goals set early, Karni didn’t know he would be an engineer, let alone work with the sun. He grew up in the Polish Zionist Kibbutz Beit Alpha in northern Israel, where he slept in a children’s house like all kibbutz kids back then, and his mom before him. He went on to become an officer in a tank unit and served in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Mar 02, 2016...
Some of the Phresh Heroes (Courtesy)
One minute, a piece of fruit or a growing vegetable is alive and growing, but the next – after it’s picked – the process of death and rot begins. Exposed to the atmosphere and the environment, it’s just a matter of time, sometimes days, before mold and decay set in and eventually render produce inedible.
It’s nature’s way, but it’s damned inconvenient for commercial distributors, supermarkets, and consumers. But the “essential oil” protection system developed by Israeli food-tech start-up Phresh Organics can help fruits and vegetables stay fresh for as long as a month and preserve their vitamins, according to company CEO Amit Gal-Or.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/light-trick-to-see-around-corners/
Jul 15, 2012...
The letter A with no scattering (top), behind scattering plastic (centre) and re-imaged with the new technique
Much research in recent years has focused on correcting for scattering, mostly for medical applications.
But the new trick, reported in Nature Photonics, is quick, simple and uses natural light rather than lasers.
It uses what is called a spatial light modulator to “undo” the scattering that makes objects opaque or non-reflecting.
Apr 24, 2018...
Kevin Hong for Quanta Magazine
A paper posted online in January takes theoretical computer scientists halfway toward proving one of the biggest conjectures in their field. The new study, when combined with three other recent papers, offers the first tangible progress toward proving the Unique Games Conjecture since it was proposed in 2002 by Subhash Khot, a computer scientist now at New York University.
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