Co-developer of the LZ77 lossless data compression algorithm, Ziv made foundational contributions to information theory.
From 1955 to 1959, he was a Senior Research Engineer in the Scientific Department Israel Ministry of Defense, and was assigned to the research and development of communication systems. From 1961 to 1962, while studying for his doctorate at M.I.T., he joined the Applied Science Division of Melpar, Inc., Watertown, MA, where he was a Senior Research Engineer doing research in communication theory.
In 1962 Ziv returned to the Scientific Department, Israel Ministry of Defense, as Head of the Communications Division and was also an Adjunct of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. From 1968 to 1970 he was a Member of the Technical Staff of Bell Laboratories, Inc.
Ziv served as Chairman of the Israeli Universities Planning and Grants Committee from 1985 to 1991. The Planning and Grants Committee functioned as the interface between the Government of Israel and the Universities; it prepared the budget, presented it to the government, and allocated it to the Universities; it was in charge of development and means and practices in the Universities.
From 1981, he was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and served as its president from 1995 to 2004.
