Assa Auerbach was born in the
Ma'agan Michael kibbutz. His father, Israel Auerbach, was a sea captain, and was a member of the
Palyam. His mother, Ruth, was a musician and
viola player. The family moved to
Haifa when Auerbach was 3 years old. Auerbach served in the
IDF armored corps. He then worked as a wireless operator on merchant ships. He studied for a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating in 1979. From 1985 to 1988, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the
University of Chicago and later at
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Following that, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at
Boston University. Upon his return to Israel in 1990, he joined the faculty of physics at the
Technion as a faculty member, while continuing to hold his position in Boston until 1993. In 1995, he was appointed Associate Professor, and in 2000, Full Professor. From 2016 to 2018, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Physics at the Technion. In 1988, together with Daniel Arovas, Auerbach formulated the Schwinger boson description of the quantum Heisenberg model, which has applications in the theory of quantum magnets and spin liquids. Auerbach made contributions to the theory of the
quantum Hall effect and to understanding the response of superconductors and metals to electromagnetic fields, radiation, and thermal gradients. His students include Professors Ehud Altman of the
University of California, Berkeley (formerly at the Weizmann Institute), Erez Berg of the Weizmann Institute, Netanel Lindner of the Technion, and Snir Gazit of the Hebrew University. Auerbach authored over 100 research articles and six book chapters, as well as two books: a textbook for graduate students on interacting electrons and quantum magnetism, and a graphic novel aimed at making the
Maxwell's demon paradox accessible to the general public (co-written with his brother-in-law, illustrator Richard Codor). == Personal life ==