Professor Bilha Segev died in Haifa Israel on March 17, 2005 of complications arising in her battle with cancer. Bilha was born on May 7, 1963 in Haifa where she grew up. She received her B.S. degree in 1988, Suma cum Laude, her M.S. degree in 1992, working with Prof. Moshe Moshe on "Approximation Methods in Quantum Field Theories", and her Ph.D. in 1996 working with Prof. Michael Marinov on "Classically Forbidden Processes in Quantum Theory", all from The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Bilha won a Rothchild Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship, and from 1996 to 1998 she was a research associate at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics (ITAMP) at Harvard University; she also won a prestigious ITAMP Fellowship.
At ITAMP she interacted with Jack Wells, Robin Côté, Mark Raizen and Eric Heller, and worked on such varied topics as electron-positron pair production in heavy ion collisions, evanescent-wave atomic mirrors, energy transfer processes between Born-Oppenheimer surfaces in molecules, and superluminal light propagation and quantum noise. Bilha joined the faculty of Ben-Gurion University in 1998. She won the prestigious Alon Foundation Fellowship for outstanding young faculty in Israel, and in 2002, the Toronto Prize for excellence in research. Bilha's main research interests were in theoretical and mathematical physics and chemistry. In particular she worked on the following topics: Quantum and QED effects in atomic and molecular optics, Time dependence in quantum scattering processes, Formulation of the principle of causality in the quantum regime, Tunneling phenomena, Phase-space dynamics in the Wigner representation, Applications of the above to quantum gates of cold atoms in optical lattices, Non-perturbative effects in quantum electrodynamics, and Radiationless transitions in polyatomic molecules. Bilha was a gifted teacher and lecturer, and was awarded several Ben-Gurion University awards for teaching excellence. Her ability to anticipate potential sources of confusion, and explain these away to her students and colleagues, was phenomenal. Her lectures at scientific meetings were universally lauded. At Ben-Gurion University she taught courses in Introduction to Spectroscopy, Quantum Mechanics of Atoms and molecules, and Quantum Chemistry I and II. Her students venerated her. Bilha was universally loved by her students and colleagues. Her smile was contagious, and her wisdom, inspirational. We lost a very dear colleague; a colleague who shared her enthusiasm for science and for life with us. Bilha Segev will be sorely missed.
