Freie Universitaet Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin Awards Professor Hanoch Gutfreund an Honorary Doctoral Degree

Hanoch Gutfreund received his doctorate in physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1966, where he would later serve as rector and president from 1990 to 1997. His research interests include solid-state physics, mechanisms of superconductivity, statistical physics, neural network theory, computational neuroscience, and the history of relativity.

Since 1997, he has been the director of the Albert Einstein Archive at the Hebrew University. He has invested a great deal of time and energy in his work with Albert Einstein’s papers. As part of his work in this area, Gutfreund has examined the social and cultural contexts and conditions connected with knowledge, science, and research. He has published several monographs on various aspects of the history of science. In 2005, he helped organize many important projects in Germany to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s death, including the Einstein exhibition in Berlin and the sponsorship of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam.

At the Department of Physics at Freie Universität, Gutfreund assisted physics professor Gerhard Simonsohn in transferring his documentation of historical sources on the persecution of Jewish scientists and scholars at German universities during the Nazi era to Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.