Prof. Yizhaq (Itzik) Makovsky is a faculty member with a shared position at the Strauss Department of Marine Geosciences and at the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies. He is a geophysicist specializing on the full scope of offshore exploration and development including: 3D imaging, reservoir characterization as well as seafloor active processes and geohazards.
Prof. Makovsky graduated his BSC (1990) at the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University, and his PHD (1997) at the Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, CA, USA. From 1998 to 2007
Prof. Makovsky worked as a senior consulting geophysicist with Paradigm (one of the leading software companies in the global oil and gas industry), serving worldwide as an on-site global technology transfer, service and support expert in geophysical imaging and reservoir analysis.
In 2007 Prof. Makovsky joined Prof. Zvi Ben Avraham in establishing the Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa, and became the establishing head of the Department of Marine Geosciences (through 2010). Subsequently he established and heads the Applied Marine Exploration Laboratory (AMEL), and has a major role in establishing the Helmsely Center of Deep Sea Research, both at the School.
Prof. Makovsky is a member in an internal committee of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities aimed at promoting the academic infrastructure related with the gas and oil EEZ development, and is at the core management group of the National University of Haifa led Israel Mediterranean Sea Research Center consortium.

Criminology of Fish

Derya is an Assistant Professor at the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa, jointly with the Interuniversity Institute of Marine Sciences (IUI) in Eilat. Derya is from Urla (İzmir), Turkey, and received her undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, her master’s degree in Aeronautics & Astronautics at MIT and her PhD in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering in the joint program between MIT & Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Derya has professional, technical, and scientific diving certifications and conducted fieldwork from Bering Sea to Antarctica. 

I received my B.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering, M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Geo-information Engineering, all from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. I am currently an Assistant Professor, heading the Swarm and AI (SAIL) Lab, at the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, I was the founder and CTO of Autonomy & Data Science R&D in the government sector, working with research partners around the world and leading research groups, for more than twenty years. In the last five years, I am working on joint research with CSAIL & LIDS MIT labs and UPenn, on swarms and machine learning algorithms.

My research focus on making humanity better, using swarms and AI across scales. The adaptability and scalability of swarms make them particularly suited to tasks that require distributed sensing, acting, and processing, presenting numerous possibilities for addressing complex and large-scale challenges facing humanity. From nanorobots for cancer treatment, to environmental monitoring and conservation in the ocean, or disaster response and recovery, traffic management and logistics etc. – swarms, particularly swarm intelligence, offer several significant benefits for humanity.

In our cutting-edge research lab, we delve into the complex and rapidly evolving field of swarms and autonomy, leveraging the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to push the boundaries of autonomous systems across scales.

Our vision is to make human life better, where adaptability and scalability of swarms can make the difference for the ocean and for other aspects as well.

We strive to pioneer innovations that contribute significantly to the fields of autonomy and swarms, ultimately shaping the future of intelligent autonomous systems.

Heading the Marine Imaging Lab, in the Department for Marine Technologies, Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa. Here is my full CV.

​Previously: I was a post-doc, working with Prof. David Kriegman in the Computer Vision group, Computer Science and Engineering department in the University of California, San Diego, and with Prof. Jules Jaffe in the Jaffe laboratory for Underwater Imaging in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

My Ph.D.: “Geometry and Photometry of Imaging Through a Medium”, Electrical Engineering, Technion, under the supervision of Prof. Yoav Schechner, in the Hybrid Imaging lab.

Based on the developments in the lab we established SeaErra-Vision, developing intelligent vision solutions for the underwater world.

Research Areas:

Imaging | Underwater Sensing | Oceanic Engineering | Computer Vision | Computational Photography

Itzik Klein received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Geo-information Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in 2011. He is an Associate Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. He is currently a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society and part of the leadership team of the Data Science Research Center at the University of Haifa. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives.

• Data-driven inertial sensing and sensor fusion
• Inertial Navigation
• Nonlinear estimation
• Autonomous navigation
• Inertial Sensors
• Global Navigation Satellite Systems
• Visual Inertial Odometry
• Robotics

Visit our lab website to learn more about our research: http://marsci.haifa.ac.il/labs/ansfl