Dist. Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Segev of Technion’s Faculties of Physics and Electrical Engineering has added another honor to his long list of prestigious awards and distinctions: membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS). The Academy recently announced that this year it has elected 252 new members in a range of disciplines, including Prof. Segev. Although the vast majority of new inductees are American, a handful, including Segev, are International Honorary Members from countries around the world.
The process for being elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is long and convoluted, involving many levels of committees. Prof. Segev is one of only nine new members in the Physics section of the Academy. A ceremony will be held in Boston next year, during the Academy’s annual convention.
“We are honoring the excellence of these individuals, celebrating what they have achieved so far, and imagining what they will continue to accomplish,” says David Oxtoby, President of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. “The past year has been replete with evidence of how things can get worse; this is an opportunity to illuminate the importance of art, ideas, knowledge, and leadership that can make a better world.”
To qualify for membership in the Academy, candidates must be regarded as having made a milestone contribution in their field. Throughout his career, Prof. Segev has led groundbreaking research on a variety of different subjects, including photonics, lasers, and quantum electronics. His group is engaged in scientific research that influences many areas of science as well as in the development of technological applications. His scientific work has been cited in tens of thousands of scientific articles.
Prof. Segev together with Prof. Gadi Eisenstein and Prof. Uri Sivan, were the founders of the Helen Diller Quantum Center. “Our vision was to establish a national center for quantum research and education. Our draft plan is what convinced the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee to form a special committee to study whether Israel needs such a center. The Technion adopted our vision,” he recalls. Today, he remains involved as a member of the Quantum Center’s Executive Committee and as a member of the National Board on Quantum Science and Technology.
Already in 2015, Prof. Segev was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States – the highly exclusive club of the world’s most outstanding scientists. Membership in both of these esteemed academies is an impressive accomplishment, especially for someone who is not a US citizen, but Prof. Segev is first and foremost a proud Israeli who values recognition from his home country. In Israel, he received in 2014 the highest honor of all, the Israel Prize; and in 2019 he won the EMET Prize. Prof. Segev is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2011. However, above all his personal achievements, he takes pride in the success of his graduate students and postdocs, among them are currently 23 professors in the USA, Germany, Taiwan, Croatia, Italy, India, China and Israel, and many holding senior R&D positions in the industry.
