Israeli delegation visits the ESRF

The delegation was led by Prof. David Harel, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Prof. Yoseph Mekori, Chair of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israeli Council for Higher Education. This visit was the opportunity to present to the Israeli delegation the ESRF’s latest developments and the new science carried out with the capabilities of the Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS), with a presentation by ESRF Director General Francesco Sette and a visit of the new EBS flagship beamlines ID29 and BM18, as well as beamlines ID31 and ID16A.

Since 1998, when Israel joined the ESRF as a Scientific Associate, there have been many successful scientific collaborations and important contributions from Israeli scientists to the advancement of X-ray science. This is highlighted in particular by Prof. Ada Yonath’s Nobel Prize and also by the work of many long-term users, such as Prof. Moshe Deutsch of Bar-Ilan University, who studies the surface properties of liquid metals, and Prof. Boaz Pokroy of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, a materials scientist and Israel’s current representative on the ESRF’s Science Advisory Committee.

More recent collaborations have been developed in the context of new EBS platforms, such as the collaboration with the Nuclear Research Center Negev and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology within the Shock BAG, the new community-driven access mode for the study of materials under rapid and extreme loading at beamline ID19.

Prof. David Harel (left), President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, presents Francesco Sette with a symbolic plaque featuring an olive tree. Photo: D. Chenevier/ESRF.

Top image: From left: Dr. Naomi Beck, Dr. Varda Ben-Shaul, Itziar Echeverria, Prof. Marek Karliner, Francesco Sette, Prof. David Harel, Prof. Yossi Mekori, Prof. Moshe Deutsch. Photo: C. Argoud/ESRF.