Dr. Michael Fire
Michael is a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Software and Information Systems Engineering Department at Ben-Gurion University (BGU), and the founder of the Data Science for Social Good Lab. Michael was the recipient of the Moore/Sloan Data Science Fellowship and the WRF Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Science at the University of Washington. For excellence in his PhD studies, He won the Kreitman Prize. Michael's main research interests lie in big data, machine learning, social network analysis, and security and privacy. Michael also has gained extensive hands-on experience as a data scientist working for several companies and organizations.
Dr. Galit Fuhrmann Alpert
Galit is a Computational Neuroscientist, with years of experience as a Research Scientist and Machine Learning specialist in both academia and industry, and is the recipient of several prestigious prizes. Her experience includes developing algorithms, computational models, machine learning applications, and novel analysis tools for a wide range of data types. Galit holds a PhD from the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation at the Hebrew University, in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science, followed by post-doctoral training at UC Berkeley. Based on her achievements she received the competitive UC President's award. Amongst her industry experience, she held the position of the Research Scientist of eBay Inc. in Israel, where she developed machine learning algorithms and novel computational approaches for Big Data analytics. She's also been involved in several bio-tech and neuro-tech start-up initiatives applying novel computational approaches for various healthcare and commercial applications (examples include- medical drug development, brain-computer interface technology, autonomous robots for agriculture, neurofeedback for ADHD, and early sign detection of cognitive decline in elders). Her current research in the lab focuses on gender biases in science.
Dr. Dima Kagan
Dima holds a Ph.D. from the Software and Information Systems Engineering department at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a Master's in Cyber Space Security. He is an experienced data scientist, software engineer, and maker. Dima won the CHE Scholarship for Outstanding Doctoral Students in Data Sciences. He also strongly believes in the idea of open science and data. Dima has extensive industry experience and previously worked as a deputy CTO in C4i. His main research interests are privacy, security, machine learning, and social networks.
Shai Berkovitz
Shai holds a B.Sc. degree in Statistics and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration, specializing in Information Systems from Bar-Ilan University. For the past twenty years, he has been in various senior management and tech positions in the high-tech sector. He currently works in the Knesset as the director of the Knesset's administrative systems. He is an experienced technologist in the field of software engineering. Shai's research focuses on data science and legislature. He utilizes state-of-the-art data science tools to analyze large-scale open governmental datasets.
Yifat Amit
Yfat works as an IAM (Identity & Access Management) software engineer at LivePerson. She is an MSc student in the machine learning and big-data analysis program at Ben Gurion University. Yfat's research focuses on developing algorithms and tools to optimize public transportation in Israel by using data analysis tools.
Or Oxenberg
Or is an M.Sc student in Information Systems Engineering, Specialization in ML, and Autonomous Software Systems. Or works as a data scientist in Amdocs creative labs team. He has a B.Sc in Physics and Neuroscience with experience in graph and network theory algorithms in Python.
Grisha Koushnir
Grisha has a B.Sc in Aerospace engineering from the Technion and a diploma in Computer Science from the Open University. Works as a Principal Architect at a big enterprise company, dealing with characterizing of application-layer infrastructure, a system of systems architecture solutions, and more. Acquiring knowledge in Machine Learning and Data Science. Grisha's research is focused on human voice analysis and classification.
Dr. Aviad Elyashar
Aviad is a researcher at Cyber@BGU Labs at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has graduated with a BSc and MSc in Software and Information Systems Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His MSc research focused on infiltrating social network organizations using socialbots. His recent research projects have focused on network analysis with applications for detecting abusers within social networks, fake news, and clickbait detection.
Ran Ziv
Ran is a strong believer that there is an extensive tie between academic researches and industry is necessary for both technology evolution, especially in the Big Data and Machine Learning domains. He served in key roles in the high-tech industry, as Chief Data Architect at Sizmek (acquired by Amazon), Vice President of Research & Development and General Manager, Israel at Tapingo (acquired by GrubHub), and most recent role as a Vice President of Engineering at ZipRecruiter. Ran graduated with a B.Sc. in Computer Science at The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. His work mainly focuses on big data clusters, machine learning, and distributed algorithms.
Shay Lapid
Shay has graduated with a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is currently an enthusiastic M.Sc. student in Software and Information Systems Engineering, acquiring data science expertise. Shay's research is centered on the field of data science within craft beer culture.
Nadav Shalit
Nadav has an BSc in Industrial and Management Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is a data scientist and an Analyst at Intel. His main research is in the fields of Smart card Transportation
Shmuel Horowitz
Shmuel has a B.sc in physics and mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has extensive experience in computer vision and in his research, he tries to gain new insights about the world from the combination of computer vision and data science.
Mor Levy
Mor has graduated with a B.Sc. in Computer Science at Tel-Aviv University. Currently Studying for an M.Sc. in Intelligent systems, while working for a large software company as a team leader of programmers with Autism spectrum disorder. Mor's research is centered on the field of data science in the area of social studies and specifically the film industry.
Nofar Piterman
Nofar has graduated with B.Sc in Information System Engineering from the Computer Science faculty at the Technion. Currently studying for an M.Sc in Information System Engineering at Ben Gurion University. Nofar’s research is in the field of Data Science and focuses on social network analysis over time and sustainability.
