Yannai Gonczarowski, born and raised in Jerusalem, became fascinated with science and programming at an early age. As a high school senior, he taught an advanced computer class at his school, based on a curriculum that he developed. Yannai served in IDF military intelligence for four years as an algorithmic researcher and project leader, and toward the end of his service also as an instructor.

Yannai received his BSc in the “Amirim – Science” program for excellence at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Concentrating in both mathematics and computer science, he graduated summa cum laude as class valedictorian. He obtained his first scientific result in the first semester of his BSc studies: a novel game-theory theorem that he phrased and proved during an introductory course on discrete mathematics. This result was later published as a journal paper.

Yannai did his MSc research in mathematics at the Hebrew University under the joint advisorship of Prof. Gil Kalai (Mathematics, HUJI) and Prof. Yoram Moses (Electrical Engineering, Technion), graduating summa cum laude.

For his PhD, Yannai returned to game theory. He is studying game theory and mechanism design from both a mathematical and an algorithmic point of view, under the joint advisorship of Prof. Sergiu Hart (mathematics) and Prof. Noam Nisan (computer science). Yannai has already published several research papers and has presented his work at leading international conferences.

In addition to his research, Yannai is a passionate educator. He has been a teaching assistant at the Hebrew University since his second year as a BSc student and has repeatedly appeared on the list of outstanding teachers in the Faculty of Science. Last year he was ranked first among all computer science and engineering lecturers and teaching assistants after serving as a lecturer in a mandatory introductory course for computer science students.

Concurrently with his scientific studies, Yannai acquired a BMus and an MMus in Classical Singing at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. He has performed in professional opera productions and with Israel’s leading orchestras.