Jerusalem, Israel - June 3, 2018 - The laureates of the 2018 Wolf Prize were announced in February, in Jerusalem, Israel, by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at Beit Hanasi.
On Thursday evening, May 31, in the Israeli Knesset Chagall Hall, the prizes were presented by President Rivlin, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and MK Nachman Shai. Shai said he was happy to be given the honor to fill in for Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein,
The Wolf Prize for Agriculture was given to Prof. Gene Robinson from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, for leading the genomics revolution in organismal and population biology of .the honeybee
The Wolf Prize for Music was to be shared by two laureates: Sir Paul McCartney, for his seminal contribution to music in the modern era; and to Adam Fischer, an inspirational conductor and eloquent defender of human rights
The Wolf Prize for Chemistry was shared by two laureates: Prof. Omar Yaghi, University of California, Berkeley, for pioneering reticular chemistry via metal-organic frameworks and covalent organic framework; and Prof. Makoto Fujita from University of Tokyo, for conceiving metal-directed assembly principles leading to large highly porous complexes
The Wolf Prize for Physics was shared by two laureates: Dr. Charles H. Bennett from IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA, and Prof. Gilles Brassard from University of Montréal, Canada, for founding and advancing the fields of Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Teleportation
The Wolf Prize for Mathematics was shared by two laureates: Prof. Alexander Beilinson and Prof. Vladimir Drinfeld, both from the University of Chicago, for their groundbreaking work in algebraic geometry, representation theory, and mathematical physics
Family, friends and mentors of the honored Wolf Prize awardees came from around world to attend. The ceremony was held without McCartney, who did not come to Israeli to receive the honor.
In his remarks Bennett noted the absence of women on the laureate panel, and said he would see that next year women would be included.
The program was held in Hebrew with translation available, though honorees gave their acceptance remarks in English. A short video was shown for each Prize winner, with Hebrew and English subtitles.It was noted, Wolf Prize is an honor second to the Nobel Prize, and a large number of Prize winners go on to win the Nobel Prize.
A cocktail reception was held on the Knesset balcony after the program under a full moon.
