77 Notable alumni of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Yonit Naaman is an Israeli poet, essayist, editor, and literary and cultural researcher.

Richard Keith Bell is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Ivory Coast from October 10, 2019, to January 31, 2023.

Talia Rahimi is an Israeli author, poet, teacher and linguist.

Avigad Vonshak is a professor emeritus at the French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

Ami Moyal is the third president of Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering. He is a professor in electrical and computer engineering and expert in the field of human machine interaction via speech recognition.

Shmuel Avital is an Israeli former politician who served as a minister without portfolio responsible for social coordination from March 2001 until February 2002.

Ashraf Brik is a full professor at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion Institute of Technology, Israel. His laboratory specializes in developing synthetic methods for chemical synthesis of proteins with post-translational modifications (PTMs) in quantities that allow for them to be studied thoroughly. Brik's group is developing novel modulators based on small molecules, peptides and peptidomimetics, to influence...

Isaac Berzin is an Israeli scientist and entrepreneur.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak is an executive and entrepreneur. He received a number of honors and public recognition for his work as a chief technology officer throughout his career. Ben-Itzhak has been selected as the 25 most influencing CTO by InfoWorld, 40 Innovative IT People To Watch by Computerworld, and 2017 Chief Technology Officer of the Year by GeekTime. He was the...

Dan Amiram is the Dean and the Joseph Safra Capital markets and Financial Institutions Chaired professor of Business at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. He also serves as the head of the Fintech concentration in the MBA program. He served and currently serves on public companies' board of directors in the United States and Israel.

Arieh Iserles is a computational mathematician, currently Professor of the Numerical Analysis of Differential Equations at the University of Cambridge and a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

Tuvia Friling is an Emeritus professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Previously he served as a senior researcher at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism and a lecturer at the Israel Studies Program both at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Yuval Elovici is a computer scientist. He is a professor in the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), where he is the incumbent of the Davide and Irene Sala Chair in Homeland Security Research. He is the director of the Cyber Security Research Center at BGU and the founder and director of...

Muhamad Kanan is an Israeli Arab politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the United Arab List and the Arab National Party between 1999 and 2003.

Raanan Zilberman has served as CEO & president of several multinational corporations, most recently as CEO of Caesarstone, a Nasdaq listed multinational manufacturer of engineered quartz surfaces. Zilberman was appointed as CEO in September 2016 and his tenure at Caesarstone was from February 2017 to March 2018.

Ibrahim Hijazi is an Israeli Arab politician who briefly served as a member of the Knesset for the Joint List in 2017.

Amir Ganiel was an Israeli swimming champion.

Dr. Muhammad Al-Nabari is a Bedouin, citizen of Israel, who served as the mayor of Hura, a Bedouin village in the south of Israel. He was elected in 2004, when he was only 34 years old. During his tenure, Al-Nabari successfully decreased the unemployment rate, improved the education system and developed four models to provide employment for the men and...

Amir Rapaport is an Israeli analyst, journalist, entrepreneur, and cyber expert.

Shimshon Rozen was an Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer and a colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Rozen participated in the Yom Kippur War and 1982 Lebanon War, accumulating hundreds of operational flying hours. Rozen also participated in the IAF's historic flight over the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Rabbi Yosef Bittón is an Argentinian-born community rabbi and the former Chief Rabbi of Uruguay.

Ofer Lahav FRAS FInstP is Perren Chair of Astronomy at University College London (UCL), Vice-Dean (International) of the UCL Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS) and Co-Director of the STFC Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science. His research area is Observational Cosmology, in particular probing Dark Matter and Dark Energy. His work involves Machine Learning for Big...

Golan Shahar is an Israeli clinical health psychologist and an interdisciplinary stress/psychopathology researcher.

Anastasia Gloushkov is an Israeli Olympic synchronized swimmer.

Avishai Henik is an Israeli neurocognitive psychologist who works at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Henik studies voluntary and automatic (non-voluntary/reflexive) processes involved in cognitive operations. He characterizes automatic processes (in various areas of research), and clarifies their importance, the relationship between automatic and voluntary processes, and their neural underpinnings. Most of his work involves research with human participants...

Ḥakham Moshe ben Yoseph Firrouz is an Israeli Karaite Hakham and Torah scholar (sage). He is the former Chief Ḥakham (spiritual leader) as well as Registrar of Marriage and Divorce of Israel's traditional Karaite Jewish Community. He served as Chairman of the Council of Sages of World Karaite Judaism and its religious council. Though Karaites do not have Rabbis, he...

Amira Dotan is an Israeli military figure and a former member of Knesset for Kadima.

Juma Azbarga is a Bedouin Israeli Arab politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Joint List between 2017 and 2019.

Shimon Solomon is an Israeli diplomat and former politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid between 2013 and 2015 and was appointed Ambassador to Angola in 2022.

Avraham "Avi" Wortzman is an Israeli politician and a former member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home. He also served as Deputy Minister of Education between 2013 and 2015.

Aviram Dahari is an Israeli politician and current mayor of the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat since 2003 before 2024.

Hagar Yanai is an Israeli author. She is the recipient of the 2008 Prime Minister's Award for Israeli Authors, and of the Devora Omer Award for Work of Literature for Middle Grade and Young Adults. She is also a three-time recipient of the Geffen Award for Best Original Hebrew Fantasy.

Shalom Danino is an Israeli businessman and politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud.

Yael Grossman is the commander and Brigadier General of the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) technology and intelligence unit Lotem.

Eli Eshed is an Israeli researcher of popular culture.

Michael W. Sonnenfeldt is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political activist. Currently, he is the founder and chairman of TIGER 21, chairman of MUUS & Company and MUUS Climate Partners, Co-Chairman, Climate Pathways Project at the Sloan School, MIT, Board member Center for New American Security (CNAS), President, Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Foundation and author of “Think Bigger and 39 Other Lessons from...

Pinhas "Pini" Badash is an Israeli politician was a member of the Knesset for Tzomet between 1992 and 1998 and the mayor of Omer local council from 1990 to 2024.

Barak Feldman is an Israeli songwriter, known especially for his collaboration with Yoni Bloch and Efrat Gosh.

Gilad Bracha is a software engineer at F5, and formerly at Google, where he was on the Dart programming language team. He is creator of the Newspeak language, and co-author of the second and third editions of the Java Language Specification, and a major contributor to the second edition of the Java Virtual Machine Specification.

Alon Chen is an Israeli neuroscientist and the 11th President of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Sheikh Hamed Abu Daabas is an Arab-Israeli of Bedouin descent, and the chairman of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

Youssef Atauna is an Israeli Arab politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Hadash. He previously served as a member for the Joint List between October 2017 and February 2018.

Yoav Gelber is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sharon Nir is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu following the 2022 Israeli legislative election.

Chen Kugel is an Israeli forensic pathologist, and chief pathologist of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

Agi Mishol is an Israeli poet. Mishol's work has been published in several languages, and has won various awards including the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry and The Yehuda Amichai Prize for literature.

Gabriel "Gabi" Siboni is a colonel (Aluf Mishne) in the Israel Defense Forces Reserve service, and a senior research fellow and the director of the Military and Strategic Affairs and Cyber Security programs at the Institute for National Security Studies. Additionally, he serves as editor of the tri-yearly published, Military and Strategic Affairs academic journal at INSS. Siboni is a...

Yael Cohen Paran is an Israeli environmentalist and politician, and co-chair of the Green Movement. She was a member of the Knesset for the Zionist Union and Hatnua from 2015 to 2019.

Dror Mishani is an Israeli crime writer, translator and literary scholar, specializing in the history of detective fiction.

Michael Mordecai Biton is an Israeli politician. He served as Minister of Strategic Affairs and as minister for civic issues within the Ministry of Defense. He was mayor of Yeruham between 2010 and 2018.

Alon Natan Schuster is an Israeli politician currently serving as a member of the Knesset for the National Unity Party. He was mayor of Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council between 2002 and 2018, the Minister of Agriculture from 2020 to 2021 and the Deputy Minister of Defense from 2021 to 2022.

Haim Jelin is an Israeli politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid from 2015 to 2019, having previously been head of Eshkol Regional Council from 2007 to 2015.

Shulamit "Shuli" Mualem-Rafaeli is an Israeli nurse and politician. She served as a member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home between February 2013 and March 2015, and again from October 2015 until December 2018, when she joined the New Right.

Karim Youssef Fadl Younis is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who served 40 years in Israeli prison after being convicted in 1983 of the 1980 capturing and killing of Israeli soldier Avraham Bromberg. After serving his sentence, he was released in 2023. Younis was the longest-serving Palestinian in Israeli prison.

Dov "Dovi" Frances is an Israeli-American venture capitalist Los Angeles and television personality. He founded Group 11, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm that has deployed over $660 million. For four seasons, Frances appeared on the Israeli version of Shark Tank, called HaKrishim.

Meir Cohen is an Israeli politician currently serving as a member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid. A former mayor of Dimona, Cohen served as Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs from 2013 to 2014, and again from 2021 to 2022

Aluf Eliezer "Eli" Shkedy is a retired general in the Israel Defense Forces, who served as commander of the Israeli Air Force from 4 April 2004 until 13 May 2008. He is also a former CEO of El Al, the flag carrier of Israel.

Yaakov Turner was an Israeli general and politician who served as the mayor of Beersheba. Prior to his election as mayor, he was an Israel Air Force pilot and the country's Chief of Police. Turner was the founder and head of the Israeli Air Force Museum.

Reuven "Ruvik" Danilovich is an Israeli politician. In 2008, he was elected mayor of Beersheba, after serving as deputy mayor under Yaakov Turner.

Miriam Peretz is an Israeli educator and public speaker. After the deaths of two of her sons during their service in the Israel Defense Forces, Peretz became a lecturer on Zionism and living with loss. She was the recipient of the Israel Prize in 2018, for lifetime achievement.

Orna Barbivai is the former Minister of Economy, a retired major general in the Israel Defense Forces, and the former head of its Manpower Directorate. She was the first woman to be made Major-general (Aluf), the IDF's second highest rank. On 1 January 2019, she announced that she would enter politics and seek a Knesset seat on the list of...

Aluf Amos Yadlin (Hebrew: עמוס ידלין; born 20 November 1951) is a former general in the Israeli Air Force (IAF), Israel Defense Forces military attaché to Washington, D.C., and head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (Hebr. abbr.: Aman).

Shelly Rachel Yachimovich is an Israeli politician, who served three terms as the official Leader of the Opposition, a member of the Knesset, and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. She served as leader of the Israeli Labor Party between 2011 and 2013. Before entering politics, she was a journalist, an author, and a television and radio...

Mordechai Vanunu, also known as John Crossman, is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured from Britain to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted. He was...

Danny Kushmaro is an Israeli journalist, news anchor, and television host.

Marcelle Machluf is an Israeli biologist.

Hossam Haick is an Arab-Israeli scientist and engineer, and the current dean of undergraduate studies at the Israel Institute of Technology. He is a pioneer known for inventing the Nano Artificial Nose (NA-NOSE) for the detection of disease from exhaled breath, for which he was highlighted as MIT's Innovators under 35; and which is widely used for sniffing out disease's...

Yechiel Lasri is an Israeli physician and politician who serves as mayor of Ashdod. He previously served as a member of the Knesset for the Center Party, Lev and Likud.

Gonen Ben Itzhak is an Israeli lawyer, former Shin Bet coordinator, and social activist. He is one of the former handlers of undercover informant Mosab Hassan Yousef ("The Green Prince"). He is one of the leading figures in the protests against Benjamin Netanyahu, and is among the founders of the anti-Netanyahu protest movement "Crime Minister".

Barak Hiram is an IDF officer with the rank of Brigadier general, currently serving as the commander of the Gaza Division. Previously, he served as the commander of the 99th Infantry Division, the Golani Brigade, the commander of the live-fire training center in the IDF, the commander of the Golani Brigade, the commander of Golani's training base, and the commander...

Shlomo Karhi is an Israeli politician and academic. He is currently a member of the Knesset for Likud and serving as the Minister of Communications in the thirty-seventh government.

Yaniv Asor is a member of Israel Defense Forces with the rank of Aluf, serving as chief of the IDF Southern Command. Previously he served as head of the Personnel Directorate, head of the Operations Branch in the Operations Directorate, commander of the Bashan Division, commander of the Golani Brigade, deputy commander of the Ga'ash Formation, and commander of the...

Gila Gamliel-Demri is an Israeli politician who currently serves as Minister of Science and Technology and as a member of the Knesset for Likud. She also previously served as Minister for Social Equality, Minister of Environmental Protection and Minister of Intelligence.

Moshe Bar is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Zion Silvan Shalom is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1992 and 2015. He held several prominent ministerial positions, including Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. He resigned on 24 December 2015 following allegations of sexual harassment. Later on, the Attorney-General closed this investigation and said these claims were unsubstantiated.

Avi Issacharoff is an Israeli journalist, known for his focus on Palestinian affairs. He is a Middle East commentator for The Times of Israel and its sister news outlet Walla!, and the Palestinian and Arab Affairs Correspondent for Haaretz. Issacharoff is known as one of the creators of the TV-series Fauda.