2012 Honorary Doctorate Recipients

Ronald Raphael Coifman

Ronald Coifman is the Phillips Professor of Mathematics and a professor of computer science at Yale University. Coifman gained his PhD from the University of Geneva in 1965, and joined the Yale faculty in 1980. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and the US National Academy of Sciences. He is largely credited for formulating wavelet theory, the applications of which now appear in a broad range of scientific fields, including compression, signal and image processing, noise removal from images and the solving of differential equations. Coifman is a recipient of the 1996 DARPA Sustained Excellence Award, the 1996 Connecticut Science Medal, the 1999 Pioneer Award of the International Society for Industrial and Applied Science, and the 1999 National Medal of Science. He has had strong ties with Tel Aviv University since the 1970s, as both a visiting scientist and a supporter of young TAU researchers and graduate students.

Yehoram Gaon

Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Yehoram Gaon embarked on his artistic career in 1957 when he joined the IDF Nahal Troupe as a singer and actor. He continued on this path in the Ha’Tarnegolim Troupe and later in the Gesher Ha’Yarkon Trio, one of the most successful vocal ensembles in Israel’s history. In 1966, while studying television directing and acting in the United States, Gaon was called upon to return to Israel and play the role of Kazablan in the musical of the same name – an iconic role that cemented his place in Israel’s cultural annals. Gaon has recorded 62 albums featuring hundreds of songs by Israel’s top poets and composers, and has played a key role in the revival of liturgical Ladino poetry. He also edits and hosts radio shows, appears as a television personality and performs public service and community work. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 2004 for his contribution to Israeli song, and is a Distinguished Citizen and a former City Council Member of Jerusalem.

Jörg Hacker

Jörg Hacker was elected President of the Leopoldina, Germany’s National Academy of Sciences, in March 2010. Born in Germany in 1952, Hacker studied biology at Martin Luther University, specializing in genetics and microbiology. After completing post-doctoral research at the University of Würzburg in 1986, Hacker remained there, becoming director of the Institute for Molecular Infection Biology in 1993. He is best known for his research on the genomics of pathogenic bacteria, and was the first to discover “pathogenicity islands,” groups of genes in the bacterial genome that are responsible for the ability of microorganisms to cause disease. He is a former Vice President of the German Research Foundation and former President of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. Hacker is a member of numerous professional societies, including the exclusive European Molecular Biology Organization, and is a former president of the European Academy of Microbiology. He holds honorary degrees from Umeå University, Sweden; the University of Hyderabad, India; and the University of Pecs, Hungary. He has been a visiting researcher at the Pasteur Institute, France, and a guest lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies.

Maureen Lipman