Prof. Assaf Friedler is a Professor of Chemistry and the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Assaf was born in Haifa, Israel in 1971. He received his Ph.D in peptide chemistry and medicinal chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, in 2000. Between 2000-2004 he did his post-doc in the field of biophysical studies of protein-protein interactions at the MRC centre for protein engineering Cambridge, UK, in the lab of Prof. Sir Alan Fersht. In 2004 he joined the institute of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Since 2010 Assaf is a Professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. Between 2010-2015 he served as the head of the school of chemistry at the Hebrew University. Between 2015-2020 Assaf was the chairman of the central student admission committee of the Hebrew university and between 2016-2020 the Vice-Rector of the Hebrew University. In his role as Vice Rector, he was in charge of student admission, the Hebrew University for the youth, special programs for the Arab and for the Ultra-orthodox population and more. During that time he was also the chairman of the inter-university forum for student admission policy in Israel and a member of the board of directors and standing committee of the national center for testing and evaluation. Since 2020, Assaf is the dean of the Faculty of Science at the Hebrew University.

Assaf is engaged in national and international public scientific activity. Between 2014-2017, he was the secretary of the physical and biophysical chemistry division of IUPAC, between 2012-2018 a member of the council of the European Peptide Society, and between 2015-2018 a member of the executive committee of the Israeli chemical society.

Assaf won several prizes and awards, including a starting grant from the ERC (European Research Council), the outstanding young scientist prize by the Israeli Chemical Society (2009), the Rector prize for an excellent researcher and teacher at the Hebrew University and the Sir Zelman Cowen universities fund prize. Assaf is also passionate about teaching and was selected as an outstanding teacher at the Hebrew University for 9 consecutive years.