About
In Memoriam: Yaron Silberberg,
Apr 21, 2019
Yaron Silberberg, OSA Fellow and recipient of the Max Born Award, passed away on 21 April 2019. Silberberg was a Professor in the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He led a research group focused on combining nonlinear optics, ultrafast optics and quantum optics to study basic interactions of light and matter.
Silberberg studied physics at Tel-Aviv University in Tel-Aviv, Israel and received his bachelor’s degree in 1972. He went onto get his master’s and PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science (1975, 1984) in Rehovot, Israel. Silberberg did a postdoctoral study at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, (USA) and then was hired as a member of the technical staff at Bellcore in Redbank, New Jersey, from 1985-1994. In 1994, he began his career at the Weizmann Institute of Science as an Associate Professor in Physics of Complex Systems, and he would serve as Department Chair from 1999-2002. In 2002, he was promoted to Dean of Physics and in 2008, Silberberg was made Head of the Crown Photonics Center (Weizmann Institute of Science).
Silberberg held several positions within the scientific community and received a number of recognitions during his career. Silberberg served as a member of the Board, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel), ERC Special Review Workgroup on the ERC Synergy program, Editorial Board of the Journal of Physics B, IOP, UK, and the Review Board of the DFG Excellence Initiative Program, Germany. Silberberg was a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, recipient of the Max Born Award (2013), Landau Prize (2011), Weizmann Prize in Exact Science (2015), Rothschild Prize (2018) and an OSA Fellow (1991).
Silberberg was an active OSA volunteer having served on various award and program committees in his area of expertise including the Nonlinear Optics Advisory Comittee, Nonlinear Optics Program Committee, and the Fundamental Science Program Committee (CLEO). He also served as a reviewer and Editor of JOSA B.
OSA and the scientific community mourns the loss of Yaron Silberberg.
