8 remarkable women scientists In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, ISRAEL21c compiled a list of eight legendary Israeli women in the sciences. Yulia Karra
https://www.israel21c.org/8-remarkable-israeli-female-scientists/
International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on March 8, emphasizes women’s rights, with a focus on gender equality, reproductive rights, and ending violence against women.
Its origins, however, go back to the labor movement of Europe in the early 20th century, and women breaking glass ceilings in the workplace and academia is an integral part of this holiday.
To mark the 2025 International Women’s Day, ISRAEL21c compiled a list of eight veteran female Israeli scientists whose research and discoveries have changed the world for the better.
1. Ada Yonath
Prof. Ada Yonath. Photo by ChameleonsEye via Shutterstock
Since the establishment of the Jewish state, 13 Israeli nationals have been awarded the Nobel Prize. Only one of them was a woman.
Ada Yonath won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 for her pioneering lifetime research on the structure of ribosomes, macromolecular machines inside human cells that perform biological protein synthesis.
Yonath also became the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel in the sciences, and the first woman to win a Nobel for chemistry in 45 years.
Born in pre-state Israel in 1939 to a couple of Jewish immigrants from Poland, Yonath grew up in poverty in Jerusalem. In 1962, she enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and found her calling in academia. She went on to receive her PhD in 1968 from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
2. Michal Schwartz
Michal Schwartz, 75, is a neuroimmunologist from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She specializes in the relationship between the brain and the immune system, which she has proven affects the brain afflicted with terminal neurodegenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Her pioneering research has won her a host of accolades, including the 2023 honorary Israel Prize for Life Sciences. Schwartz also has chaired the International Society of Neuroimmunology (ISNI) since 2016.
3. Ruth Arnon
Prof. Ruth Arnon. Photo courtesy of Weizmann Institute of Science via Wikipedia
Ruth Arnon, 91, is a biochemist from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She co-developed the multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone after a 30-year research study, during which she discovered that a material synthetically produced in the lab could suppress the disease found in an animal model of multiple sclerosis.
Arnon has won an assortment of accolades, including the 2001 Israel Prize for Medicine. She also served as president of Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities between 2010 and 2015, becoming the only woman to do so.
4. Shafi Goldwasser
Computer scientist and mathematician Shafi Goldwasser, 65, is one of only three women, and the only Israeli woman ever to win The Turing Award. New York-born Goldwasser won the prize in 2012 for “revolutionizing the science of cryptography.”
Professor at both Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Weizmann Institute of Science, Goldwasser’s research focuses on cryptography, computational complexity theory and computational number theory. She helped develop probabilistic encryption, which established the gold standard for security for data encryption. She is also a cofounder of Duality Technologies.
5. Eva Jablonka
Eva Jablonka, 73, is a world-renowned evolutionary theorist and geneticist, specializing in epigenetic inheritance, the process of transmission of epigenetic markers from one generation to another without changes in the primary DNA structure.
A professor at Tel Aviv University, Jablonka won the Landau Award for outstanding Master of Science work in 1981, among many other prizes. She has published several books making her case for the importance of epigenetic inheritance in evolution.
6. Aviv Regev
One of Jablonka’s PhD students at Tel Aviv University, Aviv Regev, has made a name for herself in the field of molecular biology. Aviv Regev, 53, is a pioneer in single cell genomics and computational biology, winning a host of awards for her work.
Regev founded the Human Cell Atlas project with a German counterpart, Sarah Teichmann. The revolutionary project is an international collaborative research consortium mapping all cell types in the healthy body, from development to adulthood, and eventually to old age. The map is expected to drive major advances in healthcare worldwide.
7. Ora Kedem
Prof. Ora Kedem. Photo courtesy of Weizmann Institute of Science via Wikipedia
If you skim through the biography of chemist Ora Kedem, who will soon be celebrating her 101st birthday, you’d wonder how her life was never made into a movie.
Vienna-born Kedem moved to pre-state Israel in 1940 at the age of 16. Kedem and her mother were among the few survivors of the SS Patria disaster. She went on to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, putting herself through school by doing cleaning work and giving private lessons in physics. During her first year at university, she found the time to join The Haganah and complete a commanders’ course.
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In the 1960s, Kedem became interested in water desalination, dedicating decades of her academic career to researching it. The water desalination methods developed by Kedem have played a major part in helping Israel deal with constant shortage of fresh water.
8. Hermona Soreq
Molecular neuroscientist Hermona Soreq, 77, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is known for her pioneering research of acetylcholine and its relevance in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
She won the 2005 Landau Prize for Biomedical Research, among many other awards. Soreq also served as the dean of the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Science between 2005 and 2008, becoming the first woman ever to do so.
Soreq cofounded the Hebrew University’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, which includes her lab.
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