Obituary for Arren Bar-Even

September 29, 2020

With great sadness, we have to announce the sudden, untimely and tragic death of our colleague Arren Bar-Even who passed away last week at the age of 40.

His group members:

In his absence, one of the most commonly echoed sentiments has been that we have lost so many
different people at once. Arren was a mentor, a supervisor, a friend and the head of a family. He
brought a diverse group of people together and gave them a home and a sense of purpose in their
scientific careers. He set new standards for everyone who worked with him and opened up
biochemical possibilities simply not on offer elsewhere. We would like to stress the words work with
him, because Arren always gave you the feeling that you were collaborative, even when he was
running miles ahead.
A close friend described Arren as a cross between a cactus and a cat, and there is something to this. If
you worked with him for more than 5 minutes there will have been times where he will have been
difficult and loveable in equal parts. Arren had the courage to find out who he was in life and then
uncompromisingly refuse to be anyone else. He was never shy of confrontation and understood that
temporary arguments are meaningless if you are working on something truly important to you and if
both parties are being honest with themselves.
Arren was the most supportive supervisor one could imagine. He walked each and every member of
his lab through difficult periods in their lives, considering this part of the job. Whether he was breezing
through the sections of a paper you couldn't write while singing Dana International or helping you put
yourself forward for a job, he always cared via actions, making things happen for you. He will have
pushed so many of us in the group to achieve more than we thought we could, giving his total trust
that we were better than we thought we were.
Arren was a restless character, and now he is finally at peace. Many of us know how he felt about
death, and know that he was not afraid or worried about what comes next. There is no way to do
justice to such a big personality in such a short text, but we wanted to show our huge appreciation for
all of the opportunity and support he showed us and wish him the best wherever he is now.

May you rest in peace Arren.

Mark Stitt, Tobi Erb, Ron Milo, Dan Tawfik and the members of Arren’s group

September 28th 2020

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