Rivka Carmi

Who is Rivka Carmi?

Prof. Rivka Carmi is an Israeli pediatrician and geneticist who, since May 2006, has served as President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the first woman to be appointed president of an Israeli university.

Born in Israel, she is a graduate of Hadassah Medical School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and did a two-year fellowship in medical genetics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University Medical School. She is the incumbent of the Kreitman Foundation Chair in Pediatric Genetics.

Professor Carmi served as Director of the Genetics Institute at the Soroka University Medical Center and held several important academic administrative positions in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Promoted to full professor in 1995, she is the incumbent of the Kreitman Foundation Chair in Pediatric Genetics. In 2000, she was elected Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at BGU – also the first woman to hold this position in Israel – and served in that position for five years. Between 2002 – 2005, she also served as the Chairperson of the Israeli Association of Medical Deans.

Prior to her entry into the administrative arena of the University, Professor Carmi’s research focused mainly on the delineation of the clinical manifestations and molecular basis of genetic diseases in the Negev Arab-Bedouin population. Author of over 100 publications in medical genetics, her research included the Identification of 12 new genes and the delineation of 3 new syndromes, one of which is known as the Carmi Syndrome. Her community projects were aimed at preventing hereditary diseases in the Bedouin community. She was deeply involved with the establishment of major biotechnology initiatives at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, primarily serving as the Acting Director of the nascent National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev.