Prof. Pinhas Alpert
Prof. Pinhas Alpert is the Mikhael M. Nebenzahl & Amalia Grossberg Chair Professor in Geodynamics, Department of Geosciences, and Professor of Dynamic Meteorology and Climate at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Alpert served as the Head of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at TAU from 2008-2013, following three years as Head of the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Alpert is the developer of a novel Factor Separation Method in numerical simulations which is described in the 2011 book: P. Alpert and T. Sholokhman, Factor Separation in the Atmosphere, Applications and Future Prospects, Cambridge University Press. This methodology allows calculating atmospheric synergies. The method was adapted by many groups worldwide.
Alpert is a co-author of more than 275 articles (205 peer-reviewed; 70 in books). His research focuses on atmospheric dynamics, climate, numerical methods, limited area modeling, aerosol dynamics and climate change. The core atmospheric model built by him in his Ph.D. (1980) was extended and is used in Belgium (LLN) and Finland (UH) for research. Prof. Alpert established and heads the Israel Space Agency Middle East Interactive Data Archive (ISA-MEIDA). Prof. Alpert is a co-director of the GLOWA-Jordan River BMBF/MOS project to study the water vulnerability in the E. Mediterranean and served as the Israel representative to the IPCC TAR WG1. Prof. Alpert supervised 36 Master students and 18 Doctors; some of them reached degree of Prof., in Universities in Israel and abroad. His current group consists of 12 students as well as seven post-docs and researchers. A novel method for monitoring rainfall employing the cellular network data was proposed by Alpert and colleagues in Science, 2006, and a new approach for advanced flood warning based on it won the "Popular Science 2009 Best of What's New" award for the security category as well as the WIPO award for 2010.
He is the recipient of the EGU Bjerknes Medal for 2018. More details on his work can be found here. Major contributions to early careers of excellent researchers include: Former PhD students: Eyal Heifetz and Hadas Saaroni are now both associate professors at Tel Aviv University. Baruch Ziv became Head of the Academic Development at the Open University. Marina Tzidulko is a senior researcher at the NNRP, Washington. Natalie Perlin is a Research Associate at the Univ. of Miami; Tehilla Ben-Gai is the Executive Director, Hemda- Center for Science Education, Tel Aviv-Jaffo. Former MSc students: Liora Malki is now a Senior Lecturer at UCL, London. Avi Lubchik completed his PhD at Imperial College with my joint supervision. Alex Kalmikov is currently completing his PhD at MIT, USA.
