Biography

Avigad was born in 1930 in Jerusalem. At 17, he joined the ranks of the Palmach

Palmach

The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...

. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

, receiving a doctorate in 1958.

Avigad was Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the Hebrew University and, in 1970, moved to the United States and taught at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a public medical school located in Piscataway and New Brunswick, New Jersey, and one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey . In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school’s principal...

 in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

.

Awards

In 1957, Avigad was awarded the Israel Prize

Israel Prize

The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...

, in exact science

Exact science

An exact science is any field of science capable of accurate quantitative expression or precise predictions and rigorous methods of testing hypotheses, especially reproducible experiments involving quantifiable predictions and measurements...

s, jointly with Shlomo Hestrin‎ and David Sidney Feingold

David Sidney Feingold

David Sidney Feingold is an American biochemist, who lived in Israel for a number of years.-Biography:...

, with whom he studied.

See also

• List of Israel Prize recipients