Prof. Oren Herman

Oren Harman is an award-winning historian of science and author. His areas of expertise include evolutionary theory, the history and philosophy of the life sciences, science and mythology, scientific biography, altruism, and the historiography of science. He served as Head of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Bar-Ilan University from 2008 to 2021, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, as well as a member of the Jens Rolff Evolutionary Biology Lab at Freie Universität Berlin.

Harman studied biology and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Oxford. He has held visiting professorships at leading institutions worldwide, including Harvard University, the Pasteur Institute, and universities in India and Germany. He is the author of several internationally acclaimed books translated into many languages, among them The Man Who Invented the Chromosome, The Price of Altruism, Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World, and Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History.

In addition to his academic work, Harman writes about science for children. His book Who Stole Darwin’s Notebooks? was selected for Israel’s Ministry of Education “Book Parade” for grades four through six, and he is currently developing a series for ages three to five titled The Heroes of Metamorphosis. Harman is also the founder of the Van Leer Incubator for Science and Creativity, a national center supporting creators from theater, fiction, cinema and television, dance, poetry, visual art, and digital media who engage with science for children and youth across all sectors of Israeli society. This is his personal website.