ICE Issue 9

61 The Israel Chemist and Chemical Engineer Issue 9 · January 2023 · Tevet 5783 Report (1999-2002), he joined the Department of Materials and Interfaces at the Weizmann Institute. In 2012 he became a Full Professor, and since 2019, he has held the Aryeh and Mintzi Katzman Professorial Chair. For nine years (20122021), he served as the Department Chair and is presently the director of the Tom and Mary Beck Center for Advanced and Intelligent Materials. Through the development of novel orbital-dependent density functional approaches, Prof. Kronik’s research has extended the predictive reach of DFT into a various electron and optical spectroscopy scenarios previously believed to be outside its realm, including the quantitative prediction of fundamental and optical gaps, as well as charge transfer excitations, in both molecular and solid-state systems. He has also contributed significantly to the development of methods for large-scale DFT calculations based on real-space approaches. Using these and other tools, in recent years, Leeor has contributed significantly to our understanding of a broad range of topics, including the electronic structure of metalorganic complexes, dynamic disorder processes in halide perovskites, structure and properties of biogenic and bioinspired molecular crystals, collective effects at molecular electronic and spintronic junctions, and more. With over 250 publications in high-profile journals, including Science, Nature Comm., Nature Materials, Adv. Mater., J. Phys. Chem. Lett., Nano Lett., Angew. Chem., Phys. Rev. B, J. Phys. Chem., JACS, and PNAS, Kronik was cited over 21,000 times with an h-index of 74. Prof. Kronik was a member of the Young Israel Academy and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has received the Krill Prize of the Wolf Foundation (2006), the ICS Prize for the Outstanding Young Scientist (2010), the Israel Vacuum Society Award (2018), and the Helen and Martin Kimmel award (2021). The 2021 ICS Excellent Young Scientist Prize was awarded to Dr. Amnon Bar-Shir of the Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, the Weizmann Institute of Science for developing small molecules, nanocrystals, supramolecular assemblies, and proteins, as sensitive and selective sensors for MRI applications; and Prof. Roman Dobrovetsky of the School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University for developing novel concepts in the chemistry of maingroup elements, and preparing molecules containing boron, phosphorus, and zinc with unique structures and catalytic properties. Amnon Bar-Shir was born in Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh, Israel, in 1975, earned his BSc (2002) and MSc in chemistry from Tel Aviv University (2004, under Michael Gozin), both magna cum laude. His PhD (2009, under Yoram Heinz Lowenstam (1989), represents an essential reference in the field. In addition to the joint research with Lia Addadi, he has investigated the hierarchical structure of bone. Since 1985, he has developed a new approach in archaeological science, studying archaeological records that are invisible to the naked eye. His book on this approach, “Microarchaeology,” was published in 2010. His list of prizes includes the 1980 Samuel Jaroslavsky Prize, the 1984 Ernst D. Bergmann Prize for Chemistry, the 2010 ICS Prize of Excellence, the 2011 Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the 2013 Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology from the Archaeological Institute of America. He has published over 350 research papers with 65,000 citations and h-index of 123. For almost 40 years, Lia and Steve have collaborated on biomineralization, and their work has a broad spectrum of implications. For example, the amount of biogenic minerals produced is so large that it affects the amounts of atmospheric CO2 absorbed into the oceans. Mineralized biological materials inspire materials scientists, and the importance of this field for medicine is enormous. A significant challenge in this field was identifying common underlying mechanisms used by organisms in forming their minerals. Lia and Steve discovered that many mineralizing organisms do not precipitate their minerals directly out of a saturated solution but first produce a transient, unstable precursor phase. This mechanism has proved to be an overall paradigm-changing strategy. They have resolved other basic phenomena, such as the counterintuitive occlusion of macromolecules inside crystals. They also understood the pathways that ions take from their uptake, concentration in vesicles within cells, and then extrusion into the extracellular space. They have also pioneered how organisms manipulate light by using organic crystals to produce structural colors and vision. With 160 joint papers and several joint prizes, Weiner and Addadi are considered worldwide leaders of the biomineralization field. Many of their students and postdocs have continued research in major academic centers in Israel and abroad. Israel has become a world center of biomineralization with 14 active research groups in Israeli universities. The 2021 ICS Prize of Excellence was awarded to Prof. Leeor Kronik of the Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, for his pioneering contributions to the development of density functional theory (DFT) and its application to a wide range of contemporary issues in chemistry and materials science. was born in 1970 in Rehovot, Israel. He obtained his BSc in Electrical Engineering (1991) from Tel Aviv University and PhD in Physical Electronics (1996) under the supervision of Prof. Yoram Shapira. Following postdoctoral research at the University of Minnesota with Prof. James R. Chelikowsky

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDU2MA==