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Faculty News Prof. Alon Wolf Wins Variety Israel
Prize for Robotic Hand Project
Awards In a moving ceremony held at the end of September,
Prof. Alon Wolf of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering was
awarded the Variety Israel Prize for Breakthroughs in Science
and Technology. Prof. Wolf is head of the Biorobotics and
Biomechanics Lab (and also serves as the Vice President for
External Relations and Resource Development). For the last
several years he has been leading
a project to develop a 3D-printed
robotic hand prosthesis for
children who were born without
or who have lost hands. “We want
to reach the stage where a hand
like this will be available for any
child in the world who needs it,”
says Prof. Wolf, who emphasized
the project’s social agenda. “We
want our students to not only
Prof. Alon Wolf and the become leaders in technology and
director of the Central Library entrepreneurship; we also want
them to contribute the knowledge they have acquired at the
Technion and give back to society.
The project, dubbed “Helping Hands”, is led by PhD students
Yair Herbst and Shunit Polinsky in partnership with Haifa3D,
a non-profit organization founded in 2013 by Asst. Prof Yoav
Medan and Asst. Prof Yacov Malinovich in collaboration with
Hezi Shotland MD. The robotic hands are on display at the
Central Library.
An event in honor of our retiring faculty members: Prof. Moshe
Shoham, Prof. Yoram Halevi, Prof. Yakov Ben-Haim, and Prof. Alexander
Oron. Thank you for your contribution to research, development, and
life-long learning. You have been an important part of the faculty’s
growth and success!
8 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
A Festive Sendoff for
Dr. Adrian Biran, Pioneer of
Modern Naval Architecture
Appreciation After 48 years as a professor
in the faculty, Dr. Adrian Biran retired at the
end of 2021 at the age of 92. Dr. Biran made
extraordinary contributions to the field of naval
architecture (in Israel and generally), especially
within the navy: most Israeli naval engineers
over the last 40 years spent time under his
tutelage, benefiting from his professionalism
and receiving an exemplary engineering
education.
Dr. Biran has been working in naval architecture
since 1950, when seacraft were still designed
using flexible wooden rulers (splines). He has
been a professor in the faculty since 1973. He
was one of the pioneers of applying computers
to naval architecture in Israel, when he
introduced software such as Archimedes, the
first hydrostatics software, and adapted it for
use in the faculty, in the navy, and the industry
as a whole. The textbooks he authored on naval
architecture and MATLAB had an international
impact and became the standard texts for
courses in these subjects all over the world.
On July 6, the faculty, in collaboration with
the Israeli Navy and the Hatter Department of
Marine Technologies at the University of Haifa,
held a naval architecture conference in honor of
Dr. Biran. The subjects Dr. Biran used to teach
(Hydrostatics of Ships and Naval Architecture 1)
will now be taught by Shmulik Shachak, a retired
captain of the Israeli Navy, where he last served
as head of the Ship Engineering Department.