Ben-Itzhak became a
Kansas State University assistant professor of
physics in 1988, an associate professor of
physics in 1994 and a professor in 2000. He became director of the James R. Macdonald Laboratory in 2007 and was named a university distinguished professor in 2012. Ben-Itzhak's research focuses on the interaction of intense ultrashort
laser pulses with
molecular ions, with the long-term goal of gaining sufficient understanding of these processes so that they may be controlled at the
quantum mechanical level. He also studies the physics of atomic and molecular collisions. Ben-Itzhak's work is carried out in
Kansas State University's James R. Macdonald Laboratory, of which he is also the director. The laboratory is supported, in large part, by $2.5 million each year from the
United States Department of Energy. In July 2012, Ben-Itzhak oversaw the installation of a major new
laser system funded by a separate $1.3 million United States Department of Energy grant. Ben-Itzhak's collaborative research has recently provided clear experimental and theoretical evidence for the dissociation of
hydrogen molecular ions seemingly without absorbing any
photons from the strong
laser field. The knowledge allows the research team to control this process by changing the laser-pulse bandwidth or by chirping the pulse — that is, increasing or decreasing the
laser frequency with time during the pulse. Ben-Itzhak has received collaborative funding from the
National Science Foundation and the
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation. He has given nearly 50 invited talks at conferences and departments across the globe, and he has written more than 140 articles in journals, conference proceedings, and books. Ben-Itzhak currently advises seven graduate students and one postdoctoral fellow. He has mentored five graduate students and five postdoctoral fellows in the past. Undergraduate students working with him have been particularly prolific and have co-authored more than 63 articles. == Awards and honors ==