Israel Prize-winning psychologist killed in accident
07/16/2012 04:59
Hebrew University Prof. Shlomo Bentin killed in California when his bicycle was hit by a dump truck.
SHLOMO BENTIN Photo: Sasson Tiram
Hebrew University Prof. Shlomo Bentin, who this past Independence Day
received an Israel Prize for his work in psychology, was killed over the weekend
in downtown Berkeley, California when his bicycle was hit by a dump truck. He
was in the US to conduct research funded by the US National Institutes of
Health.
Bentin, who was born in Romania in 1946, left a wife, three grown
children and seven grandchildren.
According to witness reports, the
driver kept going because he was not aware that he had hit him. Bentin was
wearing a helmet at the time of the accident and was rushed to a hospital, but
died there.
Colleagues at the university’s Interdisciplinary Center for
Neural Computation, which he helped found, were in shock at the tragic news.