Dr. Avi Keysary is a volunteer at the division of entomology of the Steinhardt Museum. Avi received his PhD in clinical microbiology from Tel Aviv University in 1974. His main interest is the diagnosis of infectious diseases transmitted by arthropods, especially fleas and ticks. He served as a director of two national diagnostic reference laboratories for leptospirosis and rickettsioses (spotted-fever, endemic typhus, Q-fever and ehrlichiosis), where he was responsible for the development and application of new immunological and genetic diagnostic tests, and for the discovery of new rickettsial agents in Israel.
Since his retirement, Avi volunteers at the Steinhardt Museum, where he is cataloguing and scientifically processing several ‘orphaned’ entomology collections that are of great historic and scientific value. He published over 100 scientific articles and abstracts.