Ilana Berman-Frank

Professor Ilana Berman-Frank – the outgoing Director of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, incoming Head of the Mediterranean Sea Research Center of Israel, and a Professor at the Department of Marine Biology at the University of Haifa’s Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences since 2018. Research at the Berman-Frank Aquatic Ecology and Biological Oceanography Laboratory is dedicated to the impact of aquatic ecosystems on the environment and society, ranging from the local to the global scales, from Lake Kinneret to the Mediterranean and Red Seas, to the South Pacific Ocean. Research is focused on how global changes and environmental stressors influence the organisms forming the base of the aquatic food-webs. In addition to active research and teaching, Prof. Berman-Frank has extensive experience in local and international capacities promoting marine sciences including serving as President of the Israeli Association of Aquatic Sciences; Co-Chair of the International Group of Aquatic Primary Productivity (GAP); member of board for the International Association of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and for “EcoOcean” an environmental NGO promoting marine research and education. Collaboration with Germany has been extensive with joint projects funded by the German-Israeli Foundation for Research and the BMBF-MOST with U. of Freiburg, U. of Konstanz, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, and recently co-leading a large collaboration the “Helmholtz International Laboratory ‘Eastern Mediterranean Sea as a model for Future Ocean Research (EMS FORE)” with colleagues from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Haifa.