Born and raised in Haifa, Hezi Grisaro attended the Ironi Alef High School, where his interest in science began. Upon graduation, he decided to join the ATUDA (the army’s academic reserve) program, which enabled him to receive his BSc in civil engineering (structural engineering), graduating summa cum laude from the Technion at the age of 22.

Hezi did his military service in the construction division of the IDF and the Ministry of Defense, completing the professional officer’s course of the IDF and working on construction projects in conjunction with the Army Engineering Corps. His expertise includes the analysis of military structures’ protective resistance to explosions and the impact of missiles. During the course of his army service, Hezi was awarded his MSc in civil engineering, summa cum laude, from the Technion. His MSc thesis, “The Effect of a Rear Face Layer on Scabbing in Walls of RC Protective Structures,” was suggested by the Army Corps of Engineers, which encouraged him to deal with real engineering issues facing the army. His research, which has appeared in scientific journals and at international conferences, has proven very important for the design of new protective structures and for strengthening existing structures against various threats.

After six years in the army, Hezi left military service and started his PhD studies, investigating the response of structural elements to combined loading of explosion and fragmentation impact. Such combined loading has rarely been studied and is of great significance in the field of ‘protective structures,’ with particular relevance for the Army Engineering Corps. The IDF closely follows the progress of Hezi’s research in order to use it for practical design instruction of protective structures that are subject to explosion and fragmentation impact.

Hezi was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto during 2018-2020, where he investigated experimentally and numerically the structural behavior of columns to blast scenarios and developed computational models for their response.

Today he is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the response of structures to extreme loads and the protection of structures.