Joshua Jortner

He also held honorary fellowships, lectureships and chairs at the California Institute of Technology in 1997, St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1995 and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from 1998 to 2000. Since 1973, he has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and was its president from 1986 to 1995. He is an Honorary Foreign Member of 13 Academies of Sciences in the United States, Europe (The Netherlands, 1998) and Asia.

He is known for the recognition and elucidation of the intramolecular nature of radiationless dissipation of energy in molecules of large and medium size. Based on a simple theoretical model, in 1968 he proposed, in collaboration with Mordechai Bixon, the basic notions specifying the energy acquisition process, the interstate coupling modes, and the mechanisms of energy disposal were laid open. Subsequently, he developed the theory of molecular wavepacket dynamics and quantum beats.

After completing his Ph.D., Jortner became a lecturer in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1961 to 1963. From 1962 to 1964, he was a research associate at the University of Chicago. In 1964, he was appointed to a professorship in the Department of Chemistry at Tel Aviv University and was its first chairman. From 1966 to 1972, he was deputy rector, acting rector and vice president of Tel Aviv University. Since 1973, he has held the position of the Heinemann Professor of Chemistry at the School of Chemistry, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences of Tel Aviv University. He also held a professorship at the University of Chicago from 1964 to 1971 as a part-time appointment. He was a visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen in 1974 and 1978 and at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975.

Joshua Jortner (Hebrew: יהושע יורטנר) (March 14, 1933) is an Israeli physical chemist. He is a professor emeritus at the School of Chemistry, The Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Jortner was born on March 14, 1933, in Tarnów, Poland, to a Jewish family. He migrated with his parents to Palestine under the British Mandate during the Second World War in 1940. He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1960.