Naomi Carmon (Technion) - Engineering, Technology and Planning

Naomi Carmon is a Professor with the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. She is an urban planner and a sociologist, a teacher, a researcher and a consultant. She served as President of Israel Sociological Society, holder of the Technion Chair for Urban and Regional Planning, Head of the Technion Graduate Program for Urban and Regional Planning and head of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies. Her academic writings include books (in English and Hebrew) and more than 200 articles, chapters, research reports and other publications, mainly in the following areas: social issues in urban and regional planning, urban resilience, evaluation of broad-aim plans, housing policy, urban regeneration, quality of life of minorities and immigrants, and also water-sensitive urban planning and sustainable management of stormwater. Her research and consulting work were commissioned by research foundations, governmental ministries, municipalities, other public bodies and NGOs. Among her current research works are:

• Housing and community preparedness to earthquakes in peripheral towns in Israel, with Yechiel Rosenfeld, Tami Gavrieli, Inna Burstein and Doron Asis
• Sustainable management of stormwater, including flood mitigation, with Tali Alon-Mozes, michelle Portman, Shula Golden and Nadav Shapira
• Measuring urban resilience in urban localities in Israel, with Amnon Frenkel and Aya Dolev
• Practices of urban resilience: learning from the experience of selected cities and towns, with Romy Couriel

Anna Brook (University of Haifa) – Social Science; methodological aid to all groups

Anna Brook is a lecturer and the head of the Spectroscopy and Remote Sensing Laboratory at the department of Geography and Environmental Studies, the University of Haifa. Her current research interests are a. Spatial-temporal analysis including 3-D data to assess impacts of the natural disasters and extreme weather, b. investigation and explore advanced signal and image processing algorithms for disaster pre- and post-management. c. Merging spectral domain with the spatial/temporal, which makes the results of her research highly demanded as well as discovers new frontiers for environmental applications.

Noemi Bitterman (Technion) - Engineering, Technology and Planning

Prof. Noemi Bitterman  is the founder and Chair of Masters of Industrial Design with focus on Medical and Social Design at the Division of the Technion in Tel Aviv. 14 years head of Research Unit at the Israeli Naval Hyperbaric Institute (INHI), leading applied and basic research on performance at extreme environments. Teaching studio courses of "design for emergencies" at the Technion as a Visiting Prof. at University of Venice IUAV, Italy (Since 2016 -recent). Investigating portable healthcare facilities for disaster and rescue situations.

Amit Bernstein (University of Haifa) – Social Science

I received a B.A. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology as a NIH Research Service Award Fellow at the University of Vermont. I completed an APA-accredited pre-doctoral clinical psychology internship at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Center for Health Care Evaluation at the VA Palo Alto. In 2008, I was privileged to join the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa, where I am currently an Associate Professor and recently completed my term as Director of Clinical Training. My laboratory is housed in the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa (https://irca-haifa-6h5e.squarespace.com/#). In partnership with members of the E. African refugee community and NGOs dedicated to their wellbeing, my team also runs a small satellite laboratory from the South Tel Aviv Central Bus Station – dedicated to the mental health of forcibly displaced persons (e.g., refugees, asylum seekers from E. Africa) who have survived traumatic atrocities and violent conflict. Our lab’s work to-date has only been possible due to generous support of the University of Haifa and a variety of (inter)national funding agencies (e.g., European Union FP-7 – People Programme, Israeli Council for Higher Education, National Institutes of Health, Psychology Beyond Borders, Israel Science Foundation, European Commission – European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, Rothschild Caesarea Foundation, Mind and Life Institute, European Mind and Life). I am interested in the bio-psycho-behavioral  processes underlying the development and maintenance of prevalent forms of suffering and psychopathology. In addition to gaining insights about the nature of the human condition, suffering and thriving, illuminating these processes is important to advancing intervention and prevention science. Accordingly, in recent years my work has focused on topics including: (I) The nature and function of attentional (dys)regulation in suffering and mental health. (II) The mechanisms through which present moment attention and awareness or mindfulness contributes to mental health. (III) Application of our lab’s work to a critical public mental health crisis – the development of novel means to improve the mental health of survivors of mass atrocities and violent conflict.

Tal Berman (Madatech,  Museum of Science, Technology & Space; Haifa) - Engineering, Technology and Planning

Dr. Tal Berman, Head of the MadaTech Exhibitions and R&D Division and its Chief Curator, holds a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tal is former director of OMAKIM – The Aqua Marine Enterprises Study Center and researcher at the Israel National Institute for Oceanographic Research. Among MadaTech exhibitions produced, with Dr. Berman as chief curator: Road Safety; The Secrets of Life – World of DNA; Aviation; Imagine…- Ilan Ramon – Israel's First Astronaut Green (Alternative) Energy; My Green Home; Magical Science; Smile , and many others. Newly added Noble Energy Science Park is an outdoor museum of a different kind, which combines science and entertainment to make for a unique learning experience. He also leading the establishment of three science museums in Ethiopia.

2017 Madatech's yearly theme is RESCUE. The international exhibition Rescue presenting at the museum. Cooperation with different rescue organizations such as Home Front Command, Firefighting and Rescue Services, Magen David Adom and many others is taking place. As a result of this cooperation, many activities and demonstrations of these organizations is present for the public at  Madatech. All of these  project is being lead by Tal.

Yedidia Bentur (Rambam Health Care Campus;  Technion) – Public Health and Emergency Medicine

Clinical Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Technion. Graduated the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. Was trained in Intensive Care and completed a full residency program in Internal Medicine in Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa. This was followed by a three-year fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario.

Current positions are director of the Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology Section and the Israel Poison Information Center, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Toxicology, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa. Served as chairperson of the Israel Society of Toxicology and chairperson of its Scientific Committee. Has been chairperson of the National Antidote Committee of the Israel Ministry of Health, and member of several other national committees dealing with preparedness of hospitals to multi-casualty toxicological incidents, CBRN (Medical Corps, Israel Defense Forces), drug registration, children safety and standards of consumer products.

Edited the last two editions of Medical Management Monographs of Hazardous Materials Multi-Casualty Incidents: Hospital Guidelines, published by the Emergency Division, Israel Ministry of Health.

Served as Vice-Dean for Clinical Academic Appointments, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa.

Has been on the editorial boards of Clinical Toxicology (the official journal of the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, American Association of Poison Control Centers, and the European Association of Poison Control Centres and Clinical Toxicologists), and the Israel Medical Association Journal (IMAJ).

Was elected as fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, American College of Medical Toxicology, and the European Association of Poison Control Centres and Clinical Toxicologists.

Research areas: epidemiology of acute poisonings, poisonous plants, venomous animals, and pharmacokinetics and toxicokinetics.

Published more than 110 articles in scientific journals dealing mainly with clinical toxicology, and 20 chapters in toxicological and pharmacological textbooks.

Adar Ben-Eliyahu (University of Haifa) – Social Science

Dr. Adar Ben-Eliyahu is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa. She joined the Faculty of Education after completing her PhD in Developmental Psychology from Duke University and two post-docs in Learning Research and Development Center (University of Pittsburgh) and The Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring (University Massachusetts at Boston). Dr. Ben-Eliyahu's interests lie in how learning processes (self-regulated learning) are influenced by different situations. She is curious about the influences of traumatic events on self-regulated learning as during emergency and disaster situations, formal learning is highly disturbed. By promoting learning during disaster and emergency situations, victims may be better equipped for post-traumatic growth.

Gabriel Ben-Dor (University of Haifa) – Social Science

Gabriel Ben-Dor conducted the largest scale annual surveys on national resilience in Israel for the last seventeen years.  As such, he is considered one of the leading experts in Israel and beyond on the subjective features of national resilience.

Gad Barzilai (University of Haifa) – Law Group head

Gad Barzilai is a Full Professor of law, political science and international studies, Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, Dean Emeritus of University of Haifa Law Faculty and Vice Provost and Head of the International School, University of Haifa. His academic degrees and training are from Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Yale, and University of Michigan Ann Harbor. He has published extensively 17 books and about 165 articles and essays in academic top journals and publishing houses on issues of law, society and politics. Several of his books are award winning books. Thus, for example, in his Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities [University of Michigan Press, 2003, 2005] he paved the way for a new understating of the role of communities in shaping practices in law and towards it.  This book was awarded the Best Book Prize by the AIS and was selected to a special conference panel in the Law and Society conference in Chicago (2004). In his Law and Religion [Ashgate, International Series on Law and Society, 2007] he has edited some of the classics on law and religion and made a meaningful contribution to our understanding of this topic. In his Wars, Internal Conflicts and Political Order [SUNY 1996], he has suggested a new way for understanding the construction of political-legal order and disorder in times of national security emergencies. The Hebrew manuscript of this book was awarded the Best Book Award in National Security by the Ben Gurion Foundation. Among others he has published on politics of rights, comparative law, law and political power, law and violence, communities and law, group rights, liberal jurisprudence, national security, democracies and law, and issues concerning Middle East and Israeli politics and law. In his research he is often combining knowledge in law, the social sciences, mainly political science and political sociology, with political theory, theories of jurisprudence, comparative politics and comparative law. He has been trained to use both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Barzilai was the President of the Association for Israel Studies (2011-2013) and the Founding First Director of the Dan David Prize (1999-2002). He is a Board member of editorial boards in several world leading professional journals.

Tova Band-Winterstein (University of Haifa) – Welfare and Social Work

Tova Band Winterstein, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Social Welfare & Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel. Her main area of research in Israel is elder abuse and neglect including self-neglect and intimate partner violence along the life course. In Her work she combines knowledge generated from practice and theoretical knowledge aimed towards development of theory in gerontology on okder adults at risk. She is an experienced qualitative researcher and address issues of health, family and needs of the older adults from a life course perspective. Recently have been doing qualitative research on aging families with disabilities, older person suicidality and its meaning on family members, and sexual assault in old age. She is publishing   articles in Refereed Journals and wrote two scientific books.