Professor Sheizaf Rafaeli has been serving as president of Shenkar (http://shenkar.ac.il) since April 2020.

Sheizaf's PhD. Is from Stanford University, where he studied and served as faculty as well. He received academic degrees with distinction from the University of Haifa and the Ohio State University as well. Rafaeli studies the design, use and implications of online communication. He is interested in the managerial, educational, social, business and political aspects of information systems, as well as in literacy, opportunities and digital gap issues.

He was recently head of the Internet Lab at the University of Haifa, and is a Senior Research Associate in the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy in the Technion. He served two terms as the Director of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Haifa, where he led the department of Business Administration, and took part in establishing the departments of Knowledge and Information Management and the Management of Natural Resources and Environment. He was responsible for founding the Faculty of Management at the University of Haifa. Earlier, he created and headed the Information Systems Area in the Hebrew University's School of Management. Prof. Rafaeli is a frequent visitor on radio and television programs. Among other activities, he produced an academic broadcast university series. He is the founding editor of JCMC (The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication), the first and longest running refereed, online scientific journal, now in continuous publication for over 25 years.

Sheizaf authored several books, hundreds of research articles, and created a few software systems. Among his books is "Network and Netplay", published by MIT Press. His research has received over 10000 citations in the scientific literature. He has served in visiting positions in numerous institutions, including the Universities of Michigan, California. Stanford, Ohio State, the Technion, the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, as well as universities in China, India, Korea, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and several European countries.

Sheizaf authored a weekly column in the popular press, for over ten years.

You may read more about Rafaeli on Wikipedia, in pages about him in Hebrew, Arabic, French and English, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Sheizaf's homepage is here: http://rafaeli.net . He is part of the scientific management of the Links-ICORE Center of Excellence for the Study of Learning in a Networked Society, a member of the board of the Open University Academic Press, and of the editorial boards of several scientific journals. Rafaeli takes part in the board of directors for several NGOs, including the Wikimedia Foundation, Avnei Derech, Al-Manarah, and NPTech. He has led the creation of a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) titled Digital Culture/Clutter http://CltrCltr.net on Harvard and MIT's EdX platform. This course was taken by thousands of students simultaneously, in dozens of countries. Rafaeli created numerous online systems, including the "Citizen's Advisory Bureau" system which operated multilingually online for more than two decades. He served as a juror on the Stockholm Challenge judging for the Swedish Royal prize for public service online systems.

Ever since working in Foreign Ministry roles, serving as a deckboy on merchant marine ships, counseling juvenile delinquents, and as the Educational Director for the Military Academy, through mentoring dozens of doctoral students and hundreds of masters students, Rafaeli has been committed to the education of future generations for innovation, creativity and social responsibility.