Author Archives: Aviv

David Troupin

David Troupin

Dr. David Troupin earned his M.Sc. degree in Ecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his B.Sc. in biology at Tel Aviv University. His Ph.D. research in the Ecology Lab focused on conservation planning, specifically on incorporating ecological processes (such as succession and disturbance) and anthropogenic processes (such as urbanization) into planning schemes and accounting for future uncertainty.

You can find his Phd thesis here

Gili Noi Harpaz

Gili earned a B.Sc. in Biology from the Tel Aiv University. Her M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab dealt with Development of a quantitative approach for environmental impact assessment of a desalination plant: shavei zion case study.

You can find her Master thesis here

Ezer Fischler

Ezer earned a B.A. in Geography from the Haifa University. His M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab dealt with Using a set of landscape metrics to assess the impact of urban development on ecosystem fragmentation

Faris Jahshan

Faris Jahshan

Faris earned a B.A. in Computer Science and B.A. in Mapping and Geoinformation from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology. His M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab was “Assessing fire risk using Monte Carlo simulations of fire spread”

You can find his Master thesis here

Bosmat Segal

Bosmat Segal

Bosmat received her B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Haifa. In her M.Sc. study in the Ecology Lab she studied and developed active management practices that could prevent the decline and encourage the recovery of an endangered Iris species, Iris bismarckiana, in a nature reserve in Northern Israel. Her work includes field experiments, aerial photographs interpretation, and GIS analysis

You can find her Master thesis here

Avi Bar Massada

Avi Bar Massada

Dr. Avi Bar Massada is a spatial and landscape ecologist who develops and studies ecological models, and uses these models to answer fundamental ecological questions in community ecology, biogeography, and pyrogeography. Avi has a deep background in spatial and landscape ecology, ecological modeling, remote sensing, and wildfire science. The core of his research focuses on understanding how spatial patterns of ecological phenomena are formed, how they can be quantified, and how these spatial patterns affect various ecological processes, especially those related to the diversity and distribution of organisms across multiple spatial scales from local to continental, and the interactions between human settlements and wildfire. To answer these questions, he uses a variety of scientific approaches, including simulation models, spatial pattern analyses, multivariate statistics, GIS, and remote sensing.
Avi received his PhD from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 2008. After that, Avi has worked for four years as a Research Associate and then as an Assistant Scientist in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Avi is a faculty member in the Department of Biology and Environment, University of Haifa at Oranim since the Fall of 2012.

You can find his PhD thesis here

Jonathan Liberson

Jonathan Liberson

Jon (Yonatan) earned a B.Sc. in Environmental Science and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. His M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab focused on understanding the dynamics of colored dissolved organic matter and biologically labile carbon in Lake Kinneret, Israel

You can find his Master thesis here

Yahel Porat photo

Yahel Porat

Yahel is a landscape architect (Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, Technion, Haifa).  His research interests included Environmental effects of agriculture and other land uses, planning and management of Ecological corridors, and Conservation planning. Yahel M.Sc. researchin the Ecology Lab was a field work focuses on Evaluating biodiversity within a Mediterranean agro-ecosystem in the lower Galilee, Israel.

You can find his Phd thesis here (Hebrew)

Roy Federman

Roy Federman

Roy (Roi) earned a B.Sc. in Environmental studies and Geography from the Hebrew university of Jerusalem. His M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab dealt with predicting the potential distribution of an invasive ant species, the little fire ant (Wasmania auropunctata). The study investigated the distribution of the little fire ant on both global and local (Israel) scales. His work included species distribution modeling methods, field experiments, and GIS analysis

You can find his Master thesis here

Lior Blank

Lior Blank

Dr. Lior Blank earned a B.Sc. in Life Sciences from the Tel-Aviv University and a M.Sc. in Biological Chemistry from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. His Ph.D. research in the Ecology Lab dealt with understanding the species distribution-environment relationship using a hierarchical, multi-scale analysis. His work included advanced statistical methods, spatial analysis of vegetation structure and GIS work.

Currently a research scientist at the Department of Plant Pathology, Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel. Studying spatial distribution of plant pathogens in agricultural crops. Lab web site:  http://www.SpatialEpidemiologyLab.weebly.com

You can find his PhD thesis here

Amit Dolev

Amit Dolev

Dr. Amit Dolev joined the Ecology Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He received his B.Sc. in Biology from Haifa University (Oranim campus), his M.Sc. in Zoology and Ecology from the University of Tel Aviv and his Ph.D. in Ecology from Ben Gurion University. Amit’s Post-Doc research in The Ecology Lab focused on optimizing cattle movement and stream utilization within pasturelands.
Amit is currently the head ecologist of the northern region in the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Oded Nezer

Oded Nezer

Oded earned a B.A in Geography and Environmental Development from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In his M.Sc. research in the Ecology Lab, Modeling the distribution of the Asiatic Wild Ass (Equus Hemionus) in the Negev Desert he studied and developed active management practices for assuring the continuousness of the Reintroduced Asiatic Wild Ass in Israel. His work included field experiments, aerial photographs interpretation, and advanced GIS analysis.

You can find his Master thesis here

Rafi Kent

Rafi Kent

Dr. Rafi Kent earned a B.Sc. in Life Sciences from the Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and a M.Sc. in Marine Ecology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His Ph.D. research in the Ecology Lab dealt with understanding of mechanisms underlying biodiversity distribution patterns at varying spatial scales. His work involved analyzing datasets of species distribution from various regions around the world, such as North America, Australia and Israel by applying advanced statistical methods and GIS work. Rafi is now a staff member in the Geography and Environment Department at Bar-Ilan University, where his research revolves around spatial aspects of plant community and population ecology.

You can find his PhD thesis here

Olga Vdov

Olga Vdov

Olga earned a B.Sc. in Biology from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology. Her M.Sc. research filed in the Ecology Lab was Marine Ecology of Rocky Shores, with emphasis on algal community. Her work was a field study which investigates the correlation between environmental heterogeneity and biodiversity in algal assemblages on the rocky shores of Akhziv, Israel.

You can find her Master thesis here

Hagai Shemesh

Hagai Shemesh

Dr. Hagai Shemesh joined the Ecology Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He earned his B.Sc. in Biology and his M.Sc. and PhD in Plant Ecology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His Post-Doc in the Ecology Lab research focused on the establishment on new population of Iris lortetii while considering the genetic structure of the population and the habitats characteristics.
Currently Lecturer in Environmental Sciences department at Tel-Hai Academic College.