Prof. Oren Harman
Senior Research Fellow
Prof. Oren Harman studied biology and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Oxford, and Harvard. He is a scholar and writer specializing in evolutionary theory and the history and philosophy of science. He teaches in the Science, Technology, and Society program at Bar-Ilan University and is a Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
Among his books are The Man Who Invented the Chromosome; the trilogy Rebels, Outsiders, Dreamers in biology; Evolutions: Fifteen Myths that Explain Our World; and The Price of Altruism, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, selected as a New York Times Book of the Year, and adapted into stage plays as well as television and radio programs. His most recent book is Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History. Harman is also a children’s author: his book Who Stole Darwin’s Notebooks? offers a solution to a mystery and was selected for Israel’s Ministry of Education recommended reading list. His books have been translated into Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Turkish, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Croatian, and Malayalam.
Harman is a Senior Research Fellow at the Van Leer Institute. He previously curated the lecture series Talking about Science in the 21st Century, founded the Science and Creativity group, and currently heads the Van Leer Science and Creativity Hub together with his partner, Yael Molchadsky. The hubs serves as a home for Israeli creators in literature, theatre, television, music, dance, curating, and other fields, with the goal of producing original, high-quality science-related content for children across all sectors of Israeli society.