Born in Israel to an Israeli sea-captain and a German immigrant viola player mother. Educated at Hebrew University (B.Sc., 1979), Weizmann Institute (M.Sc.,1981), Stony Brook University (Ph.D., 1985). Continued with postdoc fellowships at University of Chicago and Brookhaven Laboratory and served three years on the faculty of Boston University, before taking a position at Technion, where he holds the Sydney and Elizabeth Corob Chair in Sciences, and served as Dean of Physics, during 2016-2017.
Assa is the author of more than 90 papers on Condensed Matter Theory, and a graduate level textbook on "Interacting Electrons and Quantum Magnetism" (Springer, NY, 1994). With animator with Richard Codor, co-authored a popular graphic novel entitled "Max The Demon vs Entropy of Doom" (maxthedemon.com), which was translated to French by Bertrand Delamotte as "L'Entropie Fatale" (CNRS Editions), and to Chinese.
