Born in Ethiopia (present citizenship Austrian) Received a B.Sc. from the Haile Sellassie I University,Ethiopia in 1973, M.SC. University of Minnesota, USA (1976), PhD University of Innsbruck (1984), Doctor of Science (Habiliation), University of Graz (1995). He has served as lecturer, researcher and administrator at the Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), University of Innsbruck, Mining University of Leoben and University of Graz (Austria) since 1976 to present. He is the 2011 recipient of the Nigerian Mining and Geoscience Society Award in Gold and a Plaque in honor of Prof. O. Oyawoye of Nigeria as a hard rock African Geologist, and the Luis Federico Leloir Prize to International Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation from the Argentinian Minister of Science in 2012. He has served as elected, President of the Geological Society of Africa (2008-2016), and Vice President and later President of the Austrian Mineralogical Society (2011-2014). He is a Fellow of the African Science Institute (ASI), the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG), the Geological Society of America (GSA) and Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS). He has published over 260 research papers in reviewed journals and conference proceedings in the different fields of Earth Sciences and taught several courses in Petrology, Mineralogy and Geochemistry. Presently, apart from his academic duties and other engagements he is serving as Vice President of the Advisory Board of the PanAfGeo Mapping Project (EGS-OAGS) and in the UNCE Expert Group on Mineral resources classification to develop an African Mineral Resources Classification (AMREC) and reporting code (PARC).
