Group Members
Matt Ricci
Postdoctoral Fellow​
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I am a Zuckerman Postdoctoral Fellow in the School Computer Science and Engineering at Hebrew University where I work with Mor Nitzan. My research lies at the intersection of machine learning and dynamical systems, and I am particularly interested in the dynamics of complex networks. Ongoing projects concern statistical models of pattern generation in biological tissue and the classification of higher order structure in dynamical systems. Earlier, I received my PhD from Brown University and an MA/BA in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. Personal website: www.matthew-ricci.net.
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Noa Moriel
PhD Student
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I am a PhD student in the Computer Science Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am intrigued by expression regulation within individual cells as well as the cooperative regulation within multicellular systems. In particular, I am interested how unicellular and multicellular regulation systems evolve, how cell-cell communication secures a controlled growth of the tissue, and how these mechanisms are disrupted in anomalies of the functional tissue.
Prior to this I completed both BSc. and MSc. supervised by Prof. Nir Friedman, worked as an algorithmic developer at Mobileye, and worked as a research scientist at the Broad Institute and at Harvard University. Aside from research I enjoy hiking, traveling and regrowing various plants.
Jonathan Karin
PhD Student
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I am an PhD student in Computer Science, I earned my BSc in Computer Engineering from Ben Gurion University and before joining the lab I was working as a Hardware Designer at Intel.
I am interested in modeling biological systems using mathematical tools, especially linear algebra and optimization. I am currently working on analyzing the spectrum of the signals composing scRNA-seq data.
In my free time, I like cooking vegan food, traveling, and watching football games of Maccabi Haifa.
Sima Dubnov
PhD Student​, joint with Prof. Hermona Soreq (HUJI)
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I am a student at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC). My main research interest is exploring molecular processes underlying neurodegeneration in the human brain. I am using methods based on Information Theory, in particular the Information Bottleneck algorithm, to deepen the current understanding of cell type identity in the aging brain and to disentangle biological processes involved in disease progression. I enjoy combining coding with biological experiments. Therefore, my PhD also includes an experimental project, which aims to construct a unique transcriptomic dataset from live human brain samples. I spend most of my free time reading, dancing, and travelling.
Hagai Rappeport
PhD Student​, joint with Prof. Nathalie Balaban (HUJI)
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I'm interested in understanding general organizing principles of Life. A strong adherent of Dobzhansky's "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", I believe that much of our current gaps in understanding Life stem from our gaps in understanding Evolution. To try and bridge one such gap, my current research agenda is focused on modelling the role of adaptive phenotypic plasticity in driving evolution and studying analogs of such plasticity in models from Complex Systems Theory. My MSc was on the topic of Chaos in Biological Systems, with Prof. Nathalie Balaban (HUJI Physics) and the late Prof. Naftali Tishbi (HUJI CS). Prior to this I worked with Prof. David Engelberg (HUJI Biochemistry) on MAP Kinases.
Guy Pelc
PhD Student
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I am a PhD student in Computer Science. My main research interest lies in using physics-informed machine learning tools for synthetic biology design applications, with the future goal of exploring possible connections to real-world problems concerning sustainability. Previously, I received my MSc in Physics and BSc in Physics and Computer Science, studying the properties of multimode fiber cavities and quantum key distribution protocols with Prof. Yaron Bromberg. Aside from research, I enjoy performing classical and contemporary music, hiking, and meditating.
Jeremie Sasson
MSc Student
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I am a MSc student in Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Previously I received my BSc in Computer Science from the Technion and also worked as a software engineer at Habana Labs, Intel.
My research currently focuses on modeling cellular computations, where cells can “communicate” with each other and interpret “messages” through biological signals. Among other mathematical frameworks, Information Theory can give us some insights to understand these communication modalities. In my free time I like running and reading historical books.​
Ben Niasoff
MSc Student
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I am a MSc student in CS, with BSc in the Combined Physics and Chemistry program at HUJI. I'm curious about most things and love interdisciplinary research. In my current project we utilise Graph Signal Processing and machine learning to optimally denoise single cell RNA data. I like to wind down by rock climbing, cooking or playing guitar.
Yuval Ezraty
Undergraduate Researcher
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I am an undergraduate student in Computer Science and I'm part of the Amirim Computer Science excellence program. I'm highly interested in applying computational methods in order to gain understanding of biological systems and discover interactions between biological processes. In my free time I enjoy playing the drums, bolder climbing, swimming and traveling.
Amit Alper
Undergraduate Researcher
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I am an undergraduate researcher in my third year at HUJI Computational Biology program. I'm very interested in using mathematical and computational tools to explore biological problems. In my free time I like to workout and travel.
Adi Yefroimsky
Undergraduate Researcher
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I am a third-year student in the Computational Biology program at the Hebrew University. I'm highly interested in the application of computational tools to biological systems to understand the underlying mechanisms of tissues and cells. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, playing chess, and listening to music.
Itay Kaspi
Undergraduate Researcher
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I am an undergraduate student in the Computational Medicine program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pursuing a dual degree in Medicine and Computer Science. I enjoy using computational tools to solve medical problems and better understand how biological systems work. Outside of my studies, I enjoy traveling, hiking, and playing the piano.
Alumni
Justas Dauparas - Postdoctoral Fellow (2018 - 2019)
Edvin Memet - Postdoctoral Fellow (joint with Sergey Ovchinnikov, Harvard) (2019 - 2021)
Zoe Piran - PhD Student (2020 - 2024)
Yotam Avidar Constantini - Graduate Student (2020 - 2024)
Marius Lange - Visiting Research Fellow (Summer 2021)
Michal Erez - MSc Student (2022-2024)
Rotem Tal - MSc Student (2022-2024)
Shmuel Orenstein - MSc Student (joint with Or Zuk, HUJI) (2021 - 2022)
Yitzchak Vaknin - MSc Student (2021-2022)
Guy Segal - MSc Researcher (2020 - 2021)
Idan Segal - Undergraduate Researcher (2024 - 2025)
Nitai Hod - Undergraduate Researcher (2023 - 2024)
Liav Feldman - Undergraduate Researcher (2023 - 2024)
Shahar Eliyahu - Undergraduate Researcher (2023 - 2024)
Bar Melinarskiy - Undergraduate Researcher (2022 - 2023)
Yehuda Mescheloff - Undergraduate Researcher (2022 - 2023)
Noam Shiftan - Undergraduate Researcher (2022 - 2023)
Yoni Bornfeld - Undergraduate Researcher (2021 - 2022)
Maoz Nahum - Undergraduate Researcher (2020 - 2021)
Dror Einav - Undergraduate Researcher (2020 - 2021)
Interested in joining the group? Please get in touch
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