Aren_Maeir Aren Maeir is a professor at Bar Ilan University and director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project (). Born in 1958 in Rochester, New York, USA, he moved to Israel in 1969 and has lived there since. Following his service in the Israel Defence Forces (where he reached the rank of captain), he did his undergraduate and graduate studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (PhD 1997 summa cum laude), and held a post-doctoral position (2002-2003) at the now defunct Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT.