European Union Research Council (ERC) awards to two researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Dr. Taleb Mukari, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Elsa Katz Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Ben-Gurion University and Prof. Barak Weiss, Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University, won a prestigious grant for five years from the Research Council of the European Union

Dr. Taleb Mukari, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Elsa Katz Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Ben-Gurion University and Prof. Barak Weiss, Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University, won a prestigious grant for five years from the European Research Council (ERC). Dr. Mukari won a grant in the amount of 1.5 million Euros, for his contribution to the development of special nanostructures for the production of green energy at a low cost and effective. Prof. Weiss won a grant in the amount of 850 thousand Euros, for the benefit of investigating the dynamics of operations of Lee clusters on parameter spaces and will try to answer On open questions in number theory and geometry.

In the reasons for awarding the prize to Dr. Mukari and Prof. Weiss, it is written: "Both researchers have a series of impressive and promising achievements, relative to young researchers in the research fields they are engaged in (Dr. Mukari in chemistry and Prof. Weiss in mathematics). These achievements include very successful articles they wrote, which were published in the best scientific magazines in their field."

Dr. Mukari completed his studies for a bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry from the Hebrew University and continued his doctoral studies under the guidance of Prof. Uri Benin from the same department and graduated with high honors in 2006. After that, he went to a post-doctoral period as a Fulbright scholar and winner of the Ilan Ramon Award for a year at the University of California-Berkeley . In 2007, he joined the research team of the American National Laboratory in Berkeley as an independent researcher until 2009. Since then, Dr. Mukari is a senior lecturer in the chemistry department at Ben-Gurion University. Among other things, this year he won the Krill Award for excellence in scientific research for 2011.

Prof. Weiss holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University, a master's degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, a PhD from the Hebrew University and a post-doctorate from New York University at Stony Brook. Since 2000 he has been a faculty member at Ben-Gurion University. Prof. Weiss received the Bergman Foundation Award in 2001 and the Faculty of Natural Sciences Dean's Award in 2009. His research is supported by grants from the Israel-United States Foundation (BSF) and the Israel Research Foundation (ISF.

The ERC grant is awarded to independent researchers, between three and ten years after receiving the doctorate (PhD). Part of the decision to award the grant is based on the past achievements of the applicant researcher. In the summary made upon receiving the award, Israel is placed 4th in Europe in terms of academic prestige. This is the eighth time that researchers from Ben-Gurion University have won the grant, since its establishment in 2007.