BGU to Bestow Honorary Doctorates upon Six Distinguished Individuals Next Week at the 46th Board of Governors Meeting

BGU will honor six impressive individuals by conferring upon them honorary doctorates next week - Tuesday June 7, 2016. The ceremony will take place in the Joya Claire Sonnenfeldt Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on the Marcus Family Campus in Beer-Sheva.

The six to be honored: International human rights lawyer Prof. Irwin Cotler, public health researcher Prof. Harvey V. Fineberg, tuberculosis researcher Prof. Valerie Mizrahi, businessman and philanthropist Ernest Scheller Jr., astronomer Prof. Silvia Torres-Peimbert, and computer scientist Prof. Jeffrey D. Ullman.  

Prof. Irwin Cotler

is the Member of Parliament for Mount Royal, Canada and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General. He is a world-renowned international human rights lawyer and has served as Counsel to prisoners of conscience including Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky, Nelson Mandela.

Prof. Harvey V. Fineberg

is President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a former president of the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also a former provost of Harvard University and a recipient of the highest prize in public health – the Calderone prize. His research focuses on policy development and implementation, especially with regard to immunization programs..

Prof. Valerie Mizrahi

is Director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Mizrahi studies mycobacterium tuberculosis, the organism that causes human tuberculosis with the goal of finding new drugs to combat the disease. She is a former HHMI international research scholar. Mizrahi is the recipient of numerous awards both from South Africa and internationally.

Ernest Scheller, Jr.

is a prominent business leader and philanthropist in Pennsylvania. He and his wife Roberta have been involved with AABGU for over 20 years. They will be dedicating the Woodman - Scheller Israel Studies International Program on Wednesday morning June 8 in Sede Boqer. He was president and chairman of Silberline Mfg. Co. founded by his father, which makes high quality special effect performance pigments.

Prof. Silvia Torres-Peimbert

is professor emeritus at the Institute of Astronomy, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Currently, she is coordinator of Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences at UNAM. She published the first complete analysis of the composition of the Orion Nebula, which showed that it is chemically very similar to our own Sun. She has also performed extensive observations of planetary nebulae. She is the recipient of the Bethe Prize and many others and the first Latin American woman to serve as president of the International Astronomical Union.

Prof. Jeffrey D. Ullman

is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. He is considered the founder of today's field of databases and his current work focuses on data cube design and data mining. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and winner of the Sigmond Contributions Award and the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. His wife Holly is a member of the BGU Board of Governors.