Professor David Harel, President of The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Academy Director Galia Finzi visited the deep-sea exploration technology facility of the Mediterranean Sea Research Center of Israel (MERCI) in Haifa on June 9, 2022. The visit was led by Academy Member Professor Zvi Ben-Avraham, founder and former head of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, who last year headed the National Steering Committee Reviewing the State of Marine Sciences in Israel.

 

The visit began in the Underwater Vehicle Lab, where Professor Harel and Ms. Finzi met with Professor Ilana Berman-Frank, Head of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences; Professor Morel Groper, Head of the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies; Professor Yizhaq Makovsky and Dr. Derya Akkaynak, who told them about the research being conducted at the facility. They then toured the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, the Underwater Acoustics and Navigation Lab, and the Marine Imaging Lab, where they met with researchers who talked to them about the studies that they were conducting.