News

• Dec. 2024: We've had a tremendous time at Dagstuhl Seminar (24511): "Coding Theory and Algorithms for Emerging Technologies in Synthetic Biology."
• Jul. 2024: congratulations to Anisha Banerjee for winning the ESIT 2024 Best Poster Award for her presentation of our work "Error-Correcting Codes for Nanopore Sequencing."
• Apr. 2024: our manuscript was accepted to ISIT 2024: Anisha Banerjee, Yonatan Yehezkeally, Antonia Wachter-Zeh and Eitan Yaakobi, "Correcting a Single Deletion in Reads from a Nanopore Sequencer." (doi)
• Mar. 2024: a new paper in TMBMC Special Issue on DNA-based Data Storage: Yonatan Yehezkeally and Nikita Polyanskii, "On Codes for the Noisy Substring Channel." (doi)
• Mar. 2024: a new paper in T-IT: Anisha Banerjee, Yonatan Yehezkeally, Antonia Wachter-Zeh and Eitan Yaakobi, "Error-Correcting Codes for Nanopore Sequencing." (doi)

Biography

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Computing with the ICOS Research Group, School of Computing, Newcastle University (UK). From 2020 to 2025, I was a senior researcher with the Associate Professorship of Coding and Cryptography (Prof. Wachter-Zeh), School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. From 2021 to 2024, I was hosted at TUM as a Carl Friedrich von Siemens Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

I received the B.Sc. degree (cum laude) in mathematics and the M.Sc. (summa cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel, in 2013, 2017, and 2020 respectively.

My area of expertise is Coding Theory and algorithms for error correction, particularly as applied to nascent data-storage media.

Select awards / grants

• 2020: Awarded a Carl Friedrich von Siemens Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for postdoctoral researchers.
• 2020: Awarded a Minerva Fellowship for a research residency at TU Munich, EI, LNT (host: Prof. Antonia Wachter-Zeh) from the Minerva Stiftung. (Declined due to conflict with Humboldt Research Fellowship.)
• 2020: Received the Dr. Max Fogiel and Helen J. Kaufmann Award for Highest Student Achievment in Electrical Engineering, from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
• 2008: Winner of the Intel Prize (Israel) for excellent BSc students in relevant fields of study.

Research Interests

In recent years I've focused on DNA-based data storage, including

• Novel sequencing and synthesis technologies, e.g., nanopore sequencers and composite DNA.
• Combined noise models, e.g., substitutions, deletions/insertions, duplications (aka 'sticky' insertions/deletions), sliced-information, etc.
• Applications of Levenshtein's reconstruction schema to data-storage channels, particularly when motivated by the technology itself.

I'm also working on novel coding techniques for memories (particularly NVMs), such as

• Rank modulation and permutation codes, designed to alleviate cell degradation.
• Mixed codes and information capacity in defect memory devices.

My interests further include combinatorial analysis and structures in general, as well as algebraic structures.

Service to community

Organisation

• Co-organiser: Dagstuhl Seminar (24511): "Coding Theory and Algorithms for Emerging Technologies in Synthetic Biology." Wadern, Germany, 2024.
• TPC member: International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications (ISITA), Taiwan, Taipei, 2024.
• Session chair: IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Espoo, Finland, 2022.
• Session chair: Munich Workshop on Coding and Cryptography (MWCC), Munich, Germany, 2022.

Reviewer, Funding agencies

• Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

Reviewer, Journals

• Nature Comput. Sci. (2024)
• IEEE Trans. on Comm. (2024)
• IEEE Trans. on Inform. Theory (2015-2024)
• Cryptography and Communications (2023-2024)
• J. Combin. Theory Ser. A (2023-2024)
• IEEE Trans. Mol., Bio. and Multi-Scale Commun (2024)
• IEEE J. on Selec. Areas in Inform. Theory (2023)
• Disc. Math. (2023)
• Designs, Codes and Cryptography (2019-2021)

Reviewer, Conferences

• IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT): 9 years (2012--2024)
• IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW): 3 years (2019--2022)
• IEEE International Symposium on Topics in Coding (ISTC): 1 year (2021)
• International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications (ISITA): 1 year (2020)

• Digital Systems (at BGU; mandatory module for Bachelor students), Winters 2018/19,2019/20.
• Calculus 1 (at BGU; prep. module for Bachelor students), Summer 2016/17.