Na'ama Hallakoun

Observational astrophysicist

About me

Na'ama Hallakoun

I am a staff scientist at the Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics of the Weizmann Institute of Science, working in the group of Dr. Sagi Ben-Ami. Before that, I was a Benoziyo-prize postdoctoral fellow in the same department. I completed my Ph.D. in astrophysics in 2019, working under the supervision of Prof. Dan Maoz in the Astrophysics Department of Tel-Aviv University. During my Ph.D. I spent a couple of years with an ESO Studentship at the European Southern Observatory in Garching. Before that I got an M.Sc. (working with Prof. Lev Vaidman) and a B.Sc. in physics from Tel-Aviv University, and a B.A. in history from The Open University of Israel. I was also one of the organizers of the TAU AstroClub, a public outreach organization, wrote articles about physics and astrophysics for the Davidson Institute of Science Education, and gave outreach lectures to high-school students from Israel and abroad. I am also an associate member of the LISA Consortium and a member of its Astrophysics Working Group.

My research

My main research interest is white dwarfs and their immediate surroundings. Click here to read more about it, and on some other research topics of mine.

Public outreach

Click here to watch a recording of a public outreach talk I gave (in Hebrew), and to read more about public outreach activities I am involved in.

How to pronounce my name?

My first name (Na'ama נעמה) has three syllables, the stress should be on the last one: "nah-ah-MAH". To pronounce my last name (Hallakoun חלקון) ignore the spelling and just say "hal-KON", this is what I do.