He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and sent to an English boarding school at the age of 7. After completing his secondary education he returned to Israel to carry out his military service before moving back to England to study the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1972 under the supervision of David Tabor. He then became a Research Fellow at the Biophysics Institute, University of Stockholm and at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden until 1974.
He moved to Australia to take a post as fellow in the Research School of Physical Science and the Research School of Biological Sciences at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University in Canberra from 1974 to 1977. He was then appointed senior fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Department of Neurobiology at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University in Canberra.
He relocated to California to join UCSB in 1986, where he worked till his death on the 20th of September 2018.