Gershon Ben-Shakhar

Gershon Ben-Shakhar is an Israeli psychologist. He served as president of the Open University of Israel. He received the Israel Prize in 2024.

Academic career

Gershon Ben-Shakhar earned a B.A. in Psychology and Statistics, an M.A. in Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, from 1975 to 1976.
Ben-Shakhar taught in the Department of Psychology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1981 on, ultimately as a Professor and for a time as the Chair of the Department and the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
In 2003 he became president of the Open University of Israel, succeeding Eliahu Nissim.

Published works

Along with John J. Furedy he wrote the book Theories and Applications in the Detection of Deception: A psychophysiological and international perspective.

Awards and recognition

In 2011 he was an EMET Prize Laureate.
In 2024, he was received the Israel Prize for research in psychology for his significant contribution to the field.