The desert with its contrasts: clear air and harsh climate; bright sun and sunless sand and dust storms; shortage of drinking water and abundance of saline one in the sea and underground; rich plant and animal population patterns, etc., provides a boundless exercise ground for non-linear physics of the environment.
Specific areas, in which research is conducted, are:
Applications of fluid mechanics in atmospheric research (Prof. Emeritus Georgy Burde, Prof. Yosef Ashkenazy, Prof. Golan Bel) and in micro-nano-fluidics and membrane electro-chemistry of relevance, among other things, to water desalination (Prof. Emeritus Isaak Rubinstein, Prof. Boris Zaltzman)
Applications of dynamical systems and pattern formation theories in spatial ecology, addressing questions related to desertification and biodiversity change in variable environments and in pattern formation in the vegetation of important implications in desert ecology and population ecology (Prof. Ehud Meron, Prof. Golan Bel, Dr. Hezi Izhaq), sand dune dynamics (Prof. Leonid Prigozhin, Dr. Hezi Izhaq), dust dynamics (Dr. Sergey Biryukov)
Non-imaging optics for the design of devices producing highly concentrated solar radiation, as well as in novel ideas in nano-science (Prof. Emeritus David Faiman, Prof. Daniel Feuermann, Prof. Emeritus Jeffrey Gordon, Prof. Eugene Katz, Dr. Avi Niv, Prof. Iris Visoly-Fisher, Dr. Muhammad Bashouti)
Mathematical modeling (granular mechanics, applied superconductivity, ferromagnetism, optimal transportation). Variational and free boundary problems; numerical methods (Prof. Leonid Prigozhin)
Theory of stochastic processes in physics (Prof. Golan Bel)
Dynamic optimization and the optimal management of natural resources under scarcity and uncertainty (Prof. Emeritus Amos Zemel)
Micro-algal biomass cultivation (Prof. Emeritus Yair Zarmi)
Climate change (Prof. Yosef Ashkenazy)
Remote sensing (Prof. Arnon Karnieli, Dr. Leah Orlovsky)
Fluid mechanics of viscous flows and complex fluids, and fluid-structure interactions, with applications to geophysical systems (Dr. Roiy Sayag )
Ice-sheet dynamics (Dr. Roiy Sayag)
Dynamical systems and pattern formation approach to electrochemical based renewable energy and biological applications (Dr. Arik Yochelis)
Molecular-Surface
Interaction and Molecular opto-electronics (Dr. Muhammad
Bashouti)
