The 2025 Israeli MR Annual Meeting held in memory of
Prof. Asher Schmidt
The Israeli Annual Magnetic Resonance Meeting in Memory of Prof. Asher Schmidt
Israel’s NMR community recently gathered at The Israeli 2024 Magnetic Resonance Meeting, which recently took place at the Technion. The event was dedicated to the memory of Prof. Asher Schmidt, one of Israel's leading solid-state NMR scientists, who passed away unexpectedly a year ago. The Technion had been his academic home for over 25 years
The day-long symposium was initiated and sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies in Theoretical Chemistry (IASTC) at the Technion. One of the Institute's goals is to organize and support meetings that foster collaboration between theoreticians and experimentalists. Additional support was provided by Bruker and Prof. Efrat Lifshitz, Dean of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. The meeting was organized by Prof. Aharon Blank and Dr. Shifi Kababya
Israel’s Magnetic Resonance community is a tight-knit family of scientists who are leaders in this field on a global level. Prof. Schmidt had been an active member of the community for decades, having pioneered sophisticated solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) strategies. Together with the late Prof. Shimon Vega from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Prof. Schmidt utilized Floquet theory to explain novel phenomena they discovered in solid-state NMR. At the IASTC, Floquet theory has been further extended to address atomic and molecular systems with finite lifetimes, driven by their interactions with strong lasers
In his opening remarks at the symposium, Prof. Nimrod Moiseyev, head of the IASTC, emphasized the passion for Floquet theory shared by Asher Schmidt, Shimon Vega, and himself. This shared interest enabled them to explore and uncover new phenomena in nature
The day’s lecturers and attendees came from all of Israel’s major universities, with an especially large contingent from the Weizmann Institute, as well as several guests from abroad and a handful from industry. Many of the speakers had been Prof. Schmidt’s colleagues or students, and even those who hadn’t known him personally paid homage to his legacy
Remembering a beloved scientist
Prof. Schmidt served as the Head of the Division of Physical and Analytical Chemistry in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry and headed the Chemistry Research Center. For more than two decades, his work focused on fine and intricate molecular-level details of complex functional materials such as biominerals, enzyme active sites, and surface sites where binding-adsorption-catalysis occur. To achieve physicochemical insights on these complex systems, he devised and applied sophisticated solid-state NMR strategies that made it possible to characterize the molecular-chemical entities and unravel the underlying mechanisms as they work in situ
Schmidt was born in Tel Aviv in 1955 and received a B.Sc. from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, followed by an M.Sc. from The Weizmann Institute of Science in the theoretical department, under the supervisor of Prof. Itamar Procaccia, and then a Ph.D. at Weizmann under the renowned NMR pioneer Prof. Shimon Vega. He then conducted postdoc research at Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1993 became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Connecticut. In 1997, he returned to Israel as a faculty member at the Technion. He was also a Visiting Professor at Washington University and at the Sorbonne Université in Paris
During his final decade, Prof. Schmidt concentrated on biominerals and biomimetic minerals. Biomineralization is the process by which organisms produce composite inorganic-organic materials with exceptional microscopic, morphologic, and mechanical qualities. Using modern solid-state NMR spectroscopy techniques, Prof. Schmidt could focus on molecular interactions within biominerals and determine their molecular-level structures. In particular, he studied calcium carbonate biomineralization systems such as plankton coccolith (E. Hux), gastroliths of blue crayfish, different types of shells and many other model systems to understand the nature formation of CaCO3
In addition to his outstanding scientific career, Prof. Schmidt’s equally remarkable personality resonated throughout the day. In his opening remarks, Prof. Nimrod Moiseyev told the audience about how, every morning, he would knock on the door of Prof. Schmidt’s office, which was next to his own office, and how they would discuss not only their work but also personal and political matters. Prof. Moiseyev and all the other speakers who knew Prof. Schmidt described an exceptionally friendly, modest and kindhearted person who always had a smile on his face and was an inspiration to everyone he knew
Prof. Schmidt’s close family members attended the symposium, including his wife Tzukit and their two children. Friends, colleagues and family members joined the event via Zoom
