News

Dr. Danieli’s diagnostics lab has developed a revolutionary technology for viral disease diagnosis using saliva samples. The technology can produce COVID-19 test results in only 40 minutes – significantly reducing waiting times in labs and enabling faster and much more efficient diagnosis and treatment.

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Faculty alumni, Dr. Becker, developed a technology that replaces human service representatives with virtual AI-based agents. Last month his company, voca.ai, established in 2017 with his partners, was sold to the American Snap, owner of SnapChat, for $70M.
Photo: Guy Dvir

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Last month, Michal Danino learned that she was accepted into Intel’s 2021 scholarship program for promoting excellence and diversity in engineering and science. “The scholarship aims to diversify the world of technology and take a part in social change since diversity in technology leads to a better outcome and technological revolutions,” says Danino. “The scholarship was awarded to 25 excelling engineering, computer science, chemistry and physics bachelor and master students who took part in community or volunteer work, promoting diverse communities.” Danino’s eligibility is a result of her high GPA, long years of community service – including MADA, working with special needs children, and encouraging and supporting religious girls who want to join the military – and her research of Alzheimer’s disease.

Knot theory is a mathematical field that greatly affected physics, and vice versa, and was discovered to have a great impact on numerous, versatile avenues in science. In laymen’s terms, knots theory describes what happens when we take a string and begin tangling it with itself. The resulting knot has invariant features that do not change even when shifted, rotated, stretched, or squeezed. Major discontinuous changes such as cutting the string or passing it through itself are required in order to destroy these characteristics. That is why these knots, and particularly their braid representation, are relatively stable and resistant to error, so they present an innovative method of information processing, especially in the quantum world. Collaborative research between Eli Cohen of the Faculty of Engineering at Bar Ilan, Prof. Avishy Carmi of Ben Gurion University, and several researchers from the University of Ottawa, headed by Prof. Ebrahim Karimi, demonstrated for the first time framed knots using an optical setup, which was first applied for purposes of secure communications. An article on the research and its outcomes was recently published in Nature Communications.

Prof. Alex Fish talks about the 700 Club, the Faculty’s excellence program, and stresses that this is not another program; it’s an actual club.

A study inspired by Dr. Eli Cohen’s theory explores transitions between strong and weak measurements of trapped ions. Covered by Nature Physics, the study is yet another step on the path to realizing and improving quantum computers

Dr. Shir Hochold-Lieber develops a biochip for diagnosing, sensing, and treating the human microbiome. Her work awarded her a postdoctoral scholarship by the Israel Academy of Science.

Like many things in nature, humans also have a natural tendency to synchronize. But what happens when something prevents us from doing just that? Dr. Moti Fridman and doctoral student Shir Shahal researched musical synchronization at the university’s nanotechnology museum project and came back with surprising conclusions on the dynamics of human networks.

The SPRING consortium, powered by the EU’s Horizon2020 program, is developing a socially pertinent robot. Prof. Sharon Gannot, head of one of the project’s research teams, explains how to give robots human listening capabilities.

After years of research, RAAAM is launching the smallest memory-on-chip demonstrated in CMOS tech. CEO Dr. Robert Giterman, Faculty graduate, explains why it is going to conquer the memory-on-chip market.

Two doctoral students from the Faculty of Engineering were awarded prizes at the annual conference of the Israeli Society for Medical and Biological Engineering 

No doubt, this was a challenging year for you, our students. COVID and all of its enforced limitations challenged us to find creative solutions so that we could continue teaching and sharing our knowledge in the best possible manner. Once the quarantine started, we shifted to remote learning and tutoring. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but we did our best: a special emergency faculty team was made available to help students with any problem – academic or personal – caused by the situation. Another team was responsible for technical support. Frontal tests were held only when there was no other option, and always according to the Ministry of Health’s regulations. We’re proud of you, our students, for managing these tough times and reaching spectacular achievements. Here are just a few of them:

Despite this year’s challenges, with stopping frontal teaching and the partial shift to working from home, our faculty members had no time to rest. Most of the courses were taught remotely, with lecturers constantly seeking new, creative solutions. Our faculty members continued to research –with a significant amount of effort put into battling COVID-19 – as well as publish and gain recognition in Israel and abroad. Here are the key points of this past year:

The academic year coming to a close was definitely an out-of-the-ordinary one. COVID-19 forced us all to stay indoors and drove us to be creative and find quick solutions to allow the Faculty to keep operating – both in research and in working with students. This was not an easy task, and we had to learn as we went along. We are extremely proud of our faculty members and our students who, despite the complexity of the situation, managed to end this year successfully, continue their research, make great achievements and win global recognition and awards (yes, despite the quarantine), as well as look forward to the future and plan new tracks and programs.

We started the year with 732 bachelor’s students (202 of them freshmen), 136 master’s students, 86 PhD students, and 22 post-doctoral students. 30% of our students are women. “The statistics are favorable, and show that the number of women in pursuit of an engineering degree is on the rise,” said Dina Yamini, Head of the Faculty of Engineering, in an interview for Maariv in celebration of International Women’s Day.

During his post-doctoral studies at MIT, Dr. Shahar Alon met artist Neil Harbisson, the first person recognized by the British government as a human cyborg. Born completely colorblind, Harbisson had an antenna implanted in his skull, translating colors into sound. The antenna sends vibrations to his head, creating different notes for each color. It’s also connected to a chip for internet access, allowing him to sense colors from space via satellite, as well as receive emails, texts and phone calls directly into his head. “Harbisson demonstrates the future of humanity,” says Dr. Shahar Alon, head of the new neuroengineering track at Bar Ilan’s Faculty of Engineering. “Technology is headed towards optimal interfacing with the brain, receiving information in the best possible manner, and upgrading it. It could completely change the world of video games – say, playing a car racing game while wearing a helmet that detects whether you want to turn left or right – but also significantly improve the lives of people with various disabilities such as communication or neurological disorders. Clearly, the potential is enormous, and our goal is to improve the brain/machine interface and prepare for a future of greater convergence between humans and computers, even without drilling into our skulls”.