Dan Shechtman

Dan Shechtman is Professor of Materials Science at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and Iowa State University. Shechtman's research as a chemist, which was led mostly during his sabbatical years, opened the new science of quasiperiodic crystals and explored several other subjects, earning him recognitions such as the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedisch Academy of Sciences, the EMRS Award and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011. To Dan Shechtman, who is a pioneer of an entrepreneurial revolution that changed the face of a country, technological entrepreneurship is more relevant than ever, having turned Israel from a country with scarce natural resources to a powerhouse of innovation.