New President of the Weizmann Institute of Science

The Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science has elected Prof. Ilan Chet to the position of Institute President. Prof. Chet will assume presidential responsibilities on December 1, 2001, with the conclusion of Prof. Haim Harari's 13-year term in office.

Prof. Chet was born in Haifa in 1939. He completed his doctoral work in microbiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Agriculture, in Rehovot.

Prof. Chet's research deals with the biological control of plant disease using environment-friendly microorganisms, focusing on the basic, applied, and biotechnological aspects of this field. Chet has published more than 330 articles in international scientific journals, edited three books in his field, and holds 30 patents. He has trained about 30 Ph.D. and 50 M.Sc. students.

Between 1983 and 1986, Prof. Chet served as the Founding Director of the Otto Warburg Minerva Center for Agricultural Biotechnology, and between 1986 and 1989 he served as Dean of the Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot. For the past ten years Prof. Chet served as Vice President for Research and Development of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Prof. Chet's national and international fame is exemplified by his rich list of academic appointments, prizes, and awards such as the Israel Prize (1996) and the Wolf Prize (1998). He was a visiting professor at Harvard, Cornell, and Rutgers Universities in the United States and at the University of Goettingen and Lund University in Europe. He served as senior scientist at DuPont, Delaware, USA, and is a member of the scientific advisory committees of both the European Union and NATO.

Prof. Chet received an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Lund University in 1991 and the Max-Planck Award for Distinguished Research in 1994. His numerous prizes include the Rothschild Prize in Agriculture (1990) and the Japanese Arima Prize for Applied Microbiology (1996). Prof. Chet has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1998.

For additional information and a photo, please contact the Spokesman's Office of the Weizmann Institute of Science, at tel. 972-8-9343856.

The Weizmann Institute of Science is a major center of scientific research and graduate study located in Rehovot, Israel. Its 2,500 scientists, students and support staff are engaged in more than 1,000 research projects across the spectrum of contemporary science.