Shikma Bressler

Bressler was born in Haifa, the second child of four, to a doctor mother and a father who was a senior worker at Elbit systems. She grew up in kibbutz Gvat and Timrat. When she was younger she played basketball in the "Ha'poel Galil Elyon" basketball team and in Israel's youth national team. After her army service, Bressler moved on to play for "Ha'poel Haifa". She retired from basketball after she was injured and began her studies at the Technion. She married and had two children. She later divorced and remarried and has five daughters.[4]

Bressler is a physicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She completed her bachelor's degree, with distinction, in physics and mathematics at the Technion, where she also completed her master's degree in physics in 2006 and a Ph.D. in 2011. In 2012, she joined the faculty at the Weizmann Institute.[2]

In 2013, Bressler formed a team at the Weizmann Institute entrusted with the development of detectors and particle physics. This team deals with the development of advanced concepts in the field of radiation detectors. She is an active researcher at the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland, where she deals with gathering data from the atlas detector in search of physics beyond the standard model of particle physics.[2]

Bressler heads a physics research group in the particle and astrophysics department of the Weizmann Institute and deals with the research into the "God particle", the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson (H) completes the standard model of particle physics and articulates the elementary building blocks of the universe.[2]

In 2016, Bressler received the Charles Clore award for research.[5]

In 2020, Bressler appeared in TheMarker's list of 100 most influential people in Israel and in Forbes magazine's list of 50 most influential women in Israel.[6][7]

In March 2020, Bressler founded and led the "Black Flag Protests", along with two of her brothers, Yarden and Eyal, and two family friends.[3] Following the 2020 Israeli legislative elections, President Reuven Rivlin laid the task of forming a government on chairman of the Blue and White party. Outgoing Knesset chairman, Yuli Edelstein, refused to give up his position for the new chairman in an attempt to prevent the establishment of a committee which would convene to deliberate on removing parliamentary immunity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[8] Bressler and two of her brothers initiated protest convoys to The Knesset and protests near the homes of Knesset members and members of the Israel Resilience Party headed by Benny Gantz.[9] The protestors began with three demands.[10] The first, the election of a new chairman for the Knesset after the 3rd elections in a year, while Benny Gantz and the block of parties opposed to the continuation of Netanyahu's rule should be entrusted with the task of forming a government. Their second demand was the establishment of Knesset committees with parliamentary supervision, and the third demand was the legislation of an amendment to the base law pertaining to the formation of a government and regulating government powers so that in the future, a person indicted on criminal charges would not be able to run for Prime Minister.[11][12][13] The protest movement spread throughout the country and came to be known as "The Black Flag Protest". The "Black Flag" represents a danger and a threat to the public.[14][15][3]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shikma Bressler.

• Kopepper, Ruta (2020). "Shikma Bressler, Initiator of "The Black Flag Protests" at #16 of the 100 Most Influential People List" (in Hebrew). The Marker. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
• "A Symphony of Particles: Physical Winner" (in Hebrew). News1. December 21, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
• Symphony of Particles: Dr. Shikma Bressler on YouTube