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Shahar received his bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Elad Gross. As a graduate student, Shahar employed advanced IR nanospectroscopy to visualize catalytic processes on single nanoparticles, enabling direct spatial and chemical mapping of catalytically active sites. His doctoral work garnered multiple national accolades, including the HUJI Nano Prize, the Azrieli Fellowship, and the Israel Chemical Society (ICS) Uri Golik Prize. As a Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow at ETH Zurich in the group of Prof. Christophe Copéret, Shahar combined surface organometallic chemistry with advanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy to investigate N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-based single-site catalysts. His work revealed distinct NMR signatures of NHC–gold bonding environments, shedding light on the subtle electronic features that influence catalytic behavior. He was also awarded an ETH Zurich Career Seed Grant to support the development of operando spectroscopy approaches to study heterogeneous catalysts.

In 2025, Shahar joined Bar-Ilan University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. The Dery Lab will focus on understanding the electronic and structural properties of catalytic surfaces using state-of-the-art spectroscopic tools, with the ultimate goal of enabling the rational design of efficient, selective, and sustainable catalytic systems.