Aviva Gileadi

Aviva E. Gileadi (; born Eva Fischmann November 26, 1917 – June 8, 2001

Biography Eva Fischmann was born on November 26, 1917, in Budapest, Hungary, to Samuel Fischmann and Gizella (née Kupferstein). She studied at the University of Budapest where she received her PhD. During World War II she was sent to a concentration camp. She was scheduled to be deported to Auschwitz, but managed to escape and hide until the Red Army arrived in Budapest in January 1945. In 1946, she moved to Vienna, where she met and married Michael Gileadi, who was her second husband and worked as a radiographer.

In 1948 she emigrated to Israel, where she changed her name to Aviva. Aviva Gileadi taught at the high school of Kibbutz Givat HaShlosha and also worked for a time at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

When the scholarship came to an end, she accepted an offer of another year to earn a degree in Nuclear sciences. During that time she enrolled on a course for operating nuclear reactors and she received an operator licence. Newspapers in 1963 claimed that Gileadi was the only woman in the western world to hold such a license.

In 1965 Gileadi was invited by the US government to assist in activating the Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) Reactor Facility in Puerto Rico. As part of her job, she instructed a team of engineers in the operation the nuclear reactor. In addition, she taught a Master of Science class in Nuclear Engineering.

Selected publications Gileadi, Michael, and Aviva E. Gileadi. "Collimation in Reducing Male Gonadal Doses in Puerto Rico-1968". Health Physics 25.1 (1973): 43–49. Aviva E. Gileadi and Wilson K. Talley, "Nuclear Excavation of a Sea-Level Isthmian Canal", Journal of the Waterways and Harbors Division, 1969, Vol. 95, Issue 3, pp. 329–336 Gileadi, Aviva E., and Fernando López Carrasco. "Determination of the transfer function and certain kinetics parameters of the L-77 reactor". Puerto Rico Nuclear Center, 1968.