Professor Emeritus Peretz Lavie
Rambam Health Care Campus is proud and honored to bestow the 2022 Rambam Award upon Professor Emeritus Peretz Lavie in recognition of his pioneering sleep research, and his exemplary leadership of the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in disseminating the highest standards of scientific and medical research worldwide, in Israel, and here at Rambam Health Care Campus.
A fifth-generation Israeli, Lavie was born in Petah Tikvah in 1949 and grew up in the foothills of Mount Carmel in Zikhron Ya’akov. While working on his first degree in Psychology at Tel Aviv University, Lavie first encountered the mysteries of sleep. He received his M.Sc. in Physiological Psychology from Florida State University and a Ph.D. in the same field from the University of Florida – the same institution that pioneered the field of sleep research. His studies triggered a life-long interest and commitment to this field of study.
Lavie joined the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in 1975 as a lecturer and established the first laboratory in Israel for diagnosing sleep disorders.
Professor Emeritus Peretz Lavie
This also marked the beginning of the Technion Center for Sleep Medicine and his many collaborations with Rambam Health Care Campus. Today, the sleep center is a Technion-facilitated start-up with one branch at Rambam and three more in other parts of Israel. Lavie’s achievements in academia and research and ongoing collaborations with the University of Florida led to his earning full professorship at the Technion by 1989.
As part of his academic activities, Lavie founded and co-founded four additional medical companies in partnership with the Technion that are related to diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders as well as cardiology, including SLP (Sleep Laboratory Products) and Itamar Medical. The Technion has always been at the top of Israel’s Ivy League. However, under Lavie’s leadership, as the Dean of Medicine (1993–1999), Vice President for Resource Development and External Relations (2001-2008), and as its President (2009-2019), The Technion became the most well-known Israeli institute in the world for multidisciplinary scientific research.
His efforts led to establishment of the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in China and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell University, USA. It is not an overstatement to say that Lavie’s leadership of The Technion sealed Israel’s role as the Start-up Nation.
The author and co-author of hundreds of scientific articles and eight books in the field of sleep research and disorders, Lavie’s volume entitled “The Enchanted World of Sleep” has been translated into 15 languages. He has won a number of prizes, including Keren Kayemet LeIsrael’s Elkeles Prize for the Best Medical Scientist (2001), the University of Pisa Sleep Award to Best Sleep Researcher in Europe (2004), the American Society of Sleep Research William Gruen Prize for Innovative Research (2006), and Israel’s prestigious EMET Prize in Medicine (2006).
He was the founder and co-founder of five companies that develop and produce medical devices for sleep medicine and cardiology and provide diagnostic services. Lavie’s exemplary standards as a researcher and leader in academia has culminated in a number of unique multidisciplinary Technion-Rambam-Industry-International-Academic collaborations and inspired a new generation of researchers and clinician-scientists – particularly here at Rambam Health Care Campus.
In acknowledgement of all the aforesaid, the Honorary Awards Committee has found Professor Emeritus Peretz Lavie deserving of the 2022 Rambam Award.
