Rivka Carmi

Prof. Rivka Carmi (born 1948) is an Israeli pediatrician and geneticist who, since May 2006, has served as President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). She is the first woman to be appointed president of an Israeli university.

Carmi was born in Israel and raised in Zichron Yaacov. She was an officer in the IDF (Captain) and served as the commander of academics officers' training school. during Yom Kippur War, she participated in establishing the missing in action (MIA) accounting unit in the IDF. Carmi is a graduate of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Hadassah Medical School. She completed a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in neonatology at the Soroka University Medical Center and an additional fellowship in medical genetics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University Medical School.

Prior to her entry into the administrative arena of the University, Professor Carmi’s research focused mainly on the delineation of the clinical manifestations and molecular basis of genetic diseases in the Negev Arab-Bedouin population. Author of over 150 publications in medical genetics, her research included the identification of 12 new genes and the delineation of 2 new syndromes, one of which is known as the Carmi Syndrome. Carmi first academic publication (1977) described an accumulation of carbon dioxide oxygen hoods, infant cots and incubators in possible relation with the sudden infant death phenomenon. Her community outreach projects were aimed at preventing hereditary diseases and advancing women's education in the Bedouin community. She was deeply involved with the establishment of major biotechnology initiatives at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and served as the Acting Director of the nascent National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev.

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