Berman (née Gilevich) Sofia (Sheina) Abramovna (1919, Rezekne) – biologist-physiologist, educator.

Sofia’s father, Abram Gilevich, worked in private business before the Second World War and later became an employee at the 3rd Riga City Hospital (“Bikur Holim”). Her mother, Dveyra Averbukh, was a housewife who raised three children, instilling in them a love of knowledge.

Sofia Berman graduated from the Latvian State Gymnasium in Ludza in 1937 and, in the same year, entered the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Latvia in Riga. During the Second World War, she was evacuated to the Saratov region, where she worked as a school teacher and a laboratory assistant in a hospital. After the war, in 1945, she returned to Riga and completed her studies at the University of Latvia, specialising in human and animal physiology.

In 1954, Sofia Berman began working as an assistant in the Department of Physiology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Latvia. In 1956, she defended her candidate dissertation, and from 1961 to 1976, she headed the Department of Human and Animal Physiology as an associate professor. Berman lectured on general physiology and specialised courses in both Russian and Latvian, supervised students’ coursework and dissertations, and mentored postgraduates, preparing many specialists for academic degrees.

She conducted scientific research in the field of ecological physiology, focusing on the accumulation and circulation of trace elements (heavy metals) in freshwater organisms. She made an invaluable contribution to the study of intestinal membrane digestion mechanisms. Sofia Berman proved the role of trace elements in the development processes, growth intensity, and productivity of freshwater fish in Latvian lakes and commercial fishponds. For the first time on a large scale, she led such research across various biogeochemical provinces, including the Southern and Middle Urals, the Fergana Valley, the Caucasus, and Transcaucasia.

The results of her research were published in more than 70 scientific papers in Russian and Latvian. In 1989, Sofia Berman moved to Israel. She currently lives in Jerusalem.

Her daughter, E.Gorshtein, is a biologist.