Yehiam Prior was educated in Jerusalem, Berkeley and Harvard before joining the department of Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he has served as a department head, chair of the Scientific Council and most recently as Dean of the faculty of Chemistry. He founded (with others) the movement for unilateral separation (Hipardut Chad Zdadit, HACHETZ), has been a board member for the Council for Peace and Security and is a member of the executive board of Atid Cahol Lavan (Blue white future). Professionally, he studies nonlinear optics, laser physics and light matter interaction in general.