Efraim Lev

Trained as both an historian and a field biologist, Efraim Lev is head of the Department of Humanities and Arts at the Technion, and an expert in the history of medicine and pharmacology in the Middle East.

Professor Efraim Lev has a strong interdisciplinary focus — combining archeology with botany and the history of Middle Eastern medicine with pharmacology. Integrating biology and history has allowed him to study subjects that have seldom been researched together, and to arrive at new historical insights. In his current research, he has mined the sacred Jewish manuscripts known as the Cairo Genizah to shed light on the medical practice of Jews in Arab Medieval Egypt, and is building a medical library of the ancient physicians and pharmacists. Balancing his interest in history, he has helped start interdisciplinary research groups for complementary and alternative medicine.

Prof. Lev was born in Haifa, earned all three degrees at Bar-Ilan University in both Jewish studies and Life Sciences. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, and then was a Visiting Scholar-Research Fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge University before starting his career at the University of Haifa. Prof. Lev joined the Technion in October 2012.