
President, The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities
David Harel is a computer scientist who has been at the Weizmann Institute since 1980 and, since 2021, has also served as President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has worked on computability theory, logics of programs, database theory, automata theory, software and systems engineering, visual languages, graph layout, modeling biological systems, odor synthesis and communication, and prosody analysis.
Harel invented Statecharts, co-invented Live Sequence Charts, and co-designed Statemate, Rhapsody, the Play-Engine, and PlayGo. His many awards include the ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award, the Israel Prize, the ACM Software System Award, the Emet Prize, the IEEE Harlan Mills Award, and six honorary degrees.
Harel is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, EATCS, and AAAS, and a member or international member of Academia Europaea, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).