School of Computer Science

Boris was one of the founders of the School of Computer Science, and the first Dean to be a faculty member, when it was considered impossible in the Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo. Boris wholeheartedly sought to advance faculty members on the academic ranks, and encouraged faculty members to explore and advance. Boris served as the school's Dean during one of the difficult times the school had, during a severe national high-tech crisis that led to a sharp drop in school enrollment, and the danger of dismissal hovered over many faculty members. In his quiet way, Boris navigated the school in front of the various factors and eventually we managed to pass through the crisis almost unscathed.
Boris was a wise and humble man, who respected those around him and at the same time knew how to insist, when necessary, in order to achieve his goals. He was a man of stories, books and music, an old school educated - who knew everything about everything, and an old school gentleman, who would not sit if someone stood by his side. He would immediately jump up from his chair and wait for the other to sit first.
The last year has not been easy for him, and yet, as usual, he has dealt with the disease with nobility.
Boris was a Super Mensch! There are not many like him. He will be missed by all of us.
May his memory be blessed.

I spent the first 30 years of my life in what is called today Russia, mostly in Saint-Petersburg (then Leningrad in the Soviet Union). I hold M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees (or rather their Russian equivalents) in mathematics from Saint-Petersburg (Leningrad) State University. My M.Sc. thesis dealt with a non-linear ODE while my Ph.D. thesis tackled numerical schemes for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. As a bizarre alternative to postdoctoral activities I spent 4 additional years in the Soviet Union working as an Assembly language programmer and software manager in an obscure state owned (as was the case with everything and everybody in those days Russia) oil refinery office.

After moving to Israel with my family (1978) I had a short spell with the Center for Educational Technology and then joined Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) as a research scientist and, later on, as CFD manager. The Flight Sciences department of IAI included a rather advanced CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) group responsible for creation of flow simulation software and its application to aircraft design (these were the times when Israel was developing new aircrafts such as the Lavi jet fighter-bomber or the mid-size business jet Astra). To give a successful example of our activities, in 1985-1988 we developed an original numerical method for flow simulation around complete aircrafts, and the corresponding software was marketed as MGAERO in many countries from Canada, France and Germany to China, Indonesia and Singapore. I stayed at IAI until 1996 when, with no new aircraft in view, the CFD activities were reduced to a minimum.

Starting from 1997, I was a faculty member in the School of Computer Science at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo (full professor from 2005, dean in the years 2004-2010, professor emeritus from 2015). In parallel, I worked as a consultant for IAI, Tel Aviv University, ORBOTEC, MoD, IARD and OPTIMENGA.

My areas of expertise include:

• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).
• Evolutionary methods for optimization problems.
• Numerical methods for partial differential equations.
• Parallel computing.
• Computer aided aerodynamic design of air vehicles.