Members
Dr. Ori Adam
Institute of Earth SciencesAcademic head of the Hebrew University Research Computing Service
Prof. Jose Gruenzweig
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and EnvironmenRead MoreResearch topics in our lab are human impacts on plants, ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles at the organismic, community and ecosystem scale. Specifically, we focus on climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change and rising atmospheric CO2 as anthropogenic driving forces that influence the performance of plants, particularly trees, and the functioning and services of ecosystems, such as Mediterranean forests and shrublands.Read Less
Prof. Adi Torfstein
Institute of Earth SciencesRead MoreResearch fields: Geochemistry, Oceanography, PaleoclimateMain interests: Isotope and trace element geochemistry of seawater and sediments, U-decay series, seawater biogeochemistry, dust and sediment provenance, paleoclimate, paleoceanography, geochronology.My research focuses on the reconstruction of past climate changes through the investigation of geochemical and sedimentary processes in marine and lacustrine archives. I am also interested in the signal transfer between the modern atmosphere and oceans to the geological record. Accordingly, my research combines between time series of modern terrigenous fluxes and biogeochemical cycles in the oceans (see the REDMAST project), and late Quaternary marine and lacustrine records.Read Less
Prof. Shai Morin
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and EnvironmentRead MoreThe laboratory's research interests are in ecological and evolutionary genetics, as they relate specifically to insect-plant and insect-environment interactions. We combine ecological and genomic tools in order to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying insect adaptation to biotic and a-biotic environmental constrains: synthetic insecticides, plant defensive chemistry and more recently, climate changes.The research team is multi-disciplinary and combines plant genetic engineering with insect ecology, chemistry, behavior and genomics. Analyses focus on arthropods that are major pests of agriculture. The main model system includes the phloem-feeding whitefly Bemisia tabaci. Bemisia tabaci has been recognized as a complex of 11 well-defined high-level generic groups containing at least 35 morphologically indistinguishable species. These closely-related species are an excellent model system for studying the microevolution of insect genes in the context of their association with environmental constrains such as detoxification of plant toxins/synthetic, insecticides and tolerance to extreme a-biotic conditions. During the years, the laboratory has developed a variety of genomic tools for our model organisms, such as: cDNA subtractive expression libraries, next generation deep sequencing (NGS) databases, Agilent targeted-microarrays and various RNA interference tools. This experimental system allows us to provide novel insights to the ways in which insects cope with the diversity and unpredictability of a range of biotic and a-biotic factors.Read Less
Prof. Yehouda Enzel
Institute of Earth Sciences
Prof. Alexander Khain
Institute of Earth SciencesRead MoreResearch interest:Cloud dynamics and microphysics; Cloud-aerosol interactions;
Motion and interaction of inertial particles in a turbulent flow;
Tropical cyclones and their interaction with the ocean,Binary tropical cyclones;
Lightning in hurricans, thunderstorms;
Atmospheric boundary layer, cellular convection;
Breezes, coastal circulation;
Numerical modeling of atmospheric processes.Read Less
Dr. Shikma Zaarur
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and EnvironmentRead MoreSoil Geochemistry LaboratoryMy research interests are in the geochemical processes of rock weathering and soil formation; geochemical dynamics of the critical zone on a macro and micro scales, and soil-water-bio interaction. I use a wide array of elemental and isotopic tools to study these processes and trace the pathways of the geochemical evolution of the critical zone.Read Less
Dr. Yonatan Goldsmith
Institute of Earth SciencesRead MoreResearch InterestsUnderstanding how global warming will effect water availability is one of the crucial questions of our time.My research is aimed at quantifying past changes in rainfall and evaporation in different places around the world (China, Mongolia, western US, Middle East) in order to understand the natural variability of rainfall and evaporation and the processes that govern this variability.I combine geomorphology with isotope geochemistry (compound specific stable isotopes (dD, d13C), traditional stable isotopes (dD, 18O, d13C), clumped isotopes and U/Th dating) to investigate how the status of lakes has changed through time. I use hydrological models and outputs of climate models to quantify and evaluate the empirical data I collect.I’m also interested in how human societies respond to climate change throughout history and in the present.Ongoing projects:-
Quantifying the migration of the East Asian Monsoon during the Late Quaternary in China and Mongolia
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Reconstructing paleo-intensity of the Indian Monsoon using lake-area fluctuations from Lake Chenghai, Southern China
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Developing and applying compound specific stable isotope biogeochemistry to problems in terrestrial hydroclimate, East Asia, West Asia, Western USA
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Chemical and isotopic processes of shoreline tufa formation in Mono Lake, USA.
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Prof. Uri Dayan
The Department of Geography
Prof. Zvi Peleg
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and EnvironmentRead MoreResearch InterestsWheat production under climate changes: The highly variable and unpredicted rainfall within and between seasons, which characterize the Mediterranean region, results in significant yield losses. Our research focuses on improving wheat production under changing climate.Cereals adaptation to abiotic stress combinations:Under field conditions, plants routinely subjected to combinations of environmental stresses. Plant response(s) to stress combinations differ from the response(s) to individual stress condition. We use the model grass Brachypodium to study genes and gene networks involved in plants adaptation to multiple environmental stresses.Herbicides resistant in grasses weeds. Lolium rigidum Gaudin (annual ryegrass), is a major grass weed infesting cereal crops in Israel. In recent years, L. rigidum resistant to ACCase, ALS and EPSPS inhibitors is spreading worldwide. Our research aims to elucidate the mechanisms of resistant involves in resistant populations.Read Less
