Gordon S. Cohen

In memory of a giant personality and a great lover of Israel, the family of Dr. Gordon S. Cohen is proud to have his name associated with Ben Gurion University’s Neuro-Technology Hub.

Gordon was a man of extraordinary intellect, out-of-the-box thinking, wicked humor and all-consuming passions. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University, Gordon earned his medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine where he would go on to serve as Assistant Professor of Pathology. He would later leave the practice of medicine to run an innovation-driven medical technology company. His professional successes also gave him the means to engage in
various civic and philanthropic projects dear to his heart.

But more than his many accomplishments, what set Gordon apart was his larger-than-life personality and his passionate commitment to those things he held dear. With encyclopedic knowledge, he could hold forth on virtually any subject with commanding authority. To the people who worked with him, he was a kind sage and advisor on everything from medical questions, to politics, to marital relations. To his children, he set high standards of achievement and character. And to his grandchildren, he was a troll whose constant, playful teasing encouraged them to think for themselves rather than follow the crowd.

After his family, Gordon’s greatest love was for the State of Israel. That love was fueled by his strong sense of justice and his divine sense of the destiny of the Jewish people. He marveled at the growth of the state for which he advocated and which he defended tirelessly all his life. He would take great pride in his family’s increasing involvement with BGU and in seeing his name attached to a cutting-edge technology hub at a world-class university in a town which he recalled as being no more than a dusty crossroad when first he visited.

That this Neuro-Technology hub is going to bring together researchers and students from many disciplines, to be able to be hands-on with the latest toys and to use this playground environment to invent new solutions to improve human lives, well that would have certainly “tickled him pink.” That these scientists would be coming from all over the world (starting first with those from his own Alma Mater) to this center in the desert which would have brought him sheer delight.