Leah Edelstein-Keshet was born in Israel in 1953, and earned both her Bachelor and Master of Science at Dalhousie University. She completed her PhD in 1982 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, specializing in applied mathematics. Edelstein-Keshet was employed as a visiting professor at Brown University and Duke University before being hired as an associate professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Mathematics in 1989. Her research began in mathematic biology, and evolved to include cell biology and biophysics.

Edelstein-Keshet has published numerous articles and written several books, including Mathematical Models in Biology, an influential text for the field of mathematical biology. She has also won various awards: the Canadian Mathematical Society’s Krieger-Nelson Prize, the Arthur Winfree Research Prize of the Society for Mathematical Biology, the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society Research Award, and the John von Neumann Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). From 1995 to 1997, she served as the Society for Mathematical Biology’s first female President; in 2017, the Society created the Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize to recognize notable contributions by women to the field of mathematical biology. Edelstein-Keshet retired in 2023 after 34 years as a professor at UBC.