2014 Honorary Doctorate Recipients
The Right Hon. Stephen Harper
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper was sworn in as Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister on February 6, 2006. An economist with a passion for political life, Prime Minister Harper was first elected to Canada’s House of Commons in the 1993 federal election. He left Parliament in 1997 to become Vice President (and later President) of the National Citizens Coalition, a prominent Canadian advocacy group for freedom and democracy. Prime Minister Harper returned to active politics in 2003. He became Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and played a key role in reuniting Canada’s conservative parties, which had been fractured into factions for a decade. In March 2004, he became Leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada. Less than two years later, on January 23, 2006, he led the Conservative Party to victory in Canada’s 39th federal election. Since taking office, Prime Minister Harper’s Government has enacted the most stringent political accountability measures in Canadian history, reduced personal and business taxes to their lowest levels in 40 years, launched major reforms of the criminal justice system, and bolstered Canada’s international reputation as a dependable ally in the defence of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Stephen Harper was born on April 30, 1959, in Toronto, Ontario. He moved to Alberta in 1978 to work in the petroleum industry and went on to obtain both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Calgary. He and his wife, Laureen (née Teskey) Harper, have two children, Benjamin and Rachel. Prime Minister Harper is an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organization named after the Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews during World War II. The foundation develops educational programs and public awareness campaigns based on the values of solidarity and civic courage, the ethical hallmarks of those who came to the aid of Jews during the Holocaust.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso served two terms as President of Brazil from 1995 to 2003. He was a professor of sociology and political science at the University of Sao Paulo and President of the International Sociological Association from 1982-1986. He has authored numerous works including the classic, Dependency and Development in Latin America. Following his term as President, Cardoso was appointed professor of Brown University, with which he is still associated today. He has lectured at universities around the world, among them Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, Stanford and Berkeley. Cardoso has received honorary degrees from over 20 institutions and is an honorary overseas member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005, he was recognized as one of the world’s 100 major public intellectuals in a survey conducted by the magazines Prospect and Foreign Policy.
Ronnie C. Chan
Ronnie Chan is Chairman of Hang Lung Properties with over $11 billion investments at present in building commercial complexes in Mainland China. He founded and chairs China Heritage Fund, is co-founding director of Forbidden City Cultural Heritage Conservation Foundation, Beijing, and is an Advisor and former Vice President of China Development Research Foundation in Beijing. Chan is also Co- Chair of the Board of Asia Society (New York), Director of the Board of Peterson Institute for International Economics, and a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on United States-China Relations. He is Founding Chairman Emeritus of the Asia Business Council. He serves or has served on the governing or advisory bodies of several think tanks and universities, including the World Economic Forum, Tsinghua University, and University of Southern California.
Agi Mishol
Israeli poet and creative writing teacher Agi Mishol was born in Transylvania in 1946 to Hungarian Holocaust survivors, making aliyah with her family at the age of 4. She has published 16 volumes of poetry, including a retrospective collection of all her works published in 2003. Some of her poems have been set to music and others translated into English and published in the United States under the title, Look There (Graywolf Press). Mishol has received the Prime Minister’s Award and the Yehuda Amihai Prize. Currently Director of the Helicon School of Poetry, she has taught creative writing at Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Alma College. She holds a master’s degree in literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Paulina Luisa Mizrahi de Deutsch
Paulina (Polly) Mizrahi de Deutsch is a Governor of Tel Aviv University and has served as President of its Argentinean Friends Association since 1995. A professional social worker with extensive experience working in non- profit organizations, she is a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires. She served professionally for the Argentine Chapter of the International Council of Jewish Women, and was awarded the Golda Meir Prize for her dedicated work. She holds Tel Aviv University’s President's Award and an Honorary Fellowship and was also awarded the Ben Gurion Prize by the Friends of Israel. Mrs. Deutsch is a former member of the executive council of the Tarbut School in Buenos Aires. In 1998, together with her late husband, Jorge, she founded the Deutsch Institute of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University.
David Sankoff
David Sankoff holds the Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Genomics at the University of Ottawa. A researcher of bioinformatics and the evolution of species for 45 years, he was co-editor of the milestone first book on computational biology in 1983. He formulated many of the original fundamental problems in the mathematical study of genes and genomes. Sankoff is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the International Society of Computational Biology, and was the first recipient of the Society’s Senior Scientist Award. He is also the recipient of Oxford University’s Weldon Memorial Prize and the Association Francophone pour le Savoir Medal among other awards. He was founding editor of the journal Language Variation and Change.
Gil Shwed
Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies since its establishment in 1993, Gil Shwed is considered the inventor of the modern firewall. Under his leadership, Check Point has grown to become the world leader in enterprise firewall appliances, and has over 3,000 employees and revenues of up to $1.4 billion annually. Among Shwed’s numerous accolades are an honorary doctorate from the Technion, the World Economic Forum’s ‘Global Leader for Tomorrow’ award, and the Academy of Achievement's ‘Golden Plate Award’ for his contribution to business and technology. Shwed chairs the Executive Committee of the TAU Youth University, as well as the Yecholot Association founded by the Rashi Foundation, which works to reduce the dropout rates in high schools. Shwed is a TAU Governor and founder of the University’s Check Point Institute for Information Security.
Paul Zimmet
Prof. Paul Zimmet is Foundation Director of the International Diabetes Institute and Director Emeritus of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. He has served on numerous international diabetes committees, including for the World Health Organization and the International Diabetes Federation, of which he is also Honorary President. He has published over 850 scientific papers, chapters and reviews, and is one of the most highly cited scientists in his field. Awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001 for his services to medical research, Zimmet is also a recipient of the 2013 Research Australia’s Peter Wills Medal and a member of the Spanish Royal National Academy of Medicine, among many other accolades. He is a longtime supporter of Tel Aviv University in the field of diabetes research.
