The groups of people in Omo valley, are facing the worst declining of the biodiversity and of indigenous practices, where the higher threat being man-made. Irrigation schemes for large-scale agriculture by the government like Kuraz Sugar Development Project (KSDP), with its planned 175,000 hectares of large-scale farmland and extensive implementation strategies is among the cause. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) reported that it will have a profound impact on some of Ethiopia’s most important protected areas, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, and the riparian forest along the Omo River. Besides, forced resettlement implementations are raised as the reason for human rights abuse in the area; most of the resettlement place doesn’t bear fertile agriculture and pastures as it is degraded and covered by invasive plant species. Hence ethnobotanical study and documentation of medicinal and wild edible plants used currently or in the recent past by the people of lower Omo valley, became our main objective, planned to collect ethnobotanical data of traditional knowledge of medicinal and wild edible plants, to conduct taxonomic identification and deposit samples of the claimed medicinal and wild edible plants in the National Herbarium of Addis Ababa University, to identify the threats and opportunities of indigenous knowledge and ecological conservation.

The Rift faces challenges like habitat destruction, wildlife poaching, and resource exploitation. Activities include conservation programs, anti-poaching patrols, and community education. Projects involve reforestation, sustainable tourism, and partnerships with local communities to promote biodiversity.

My research area of interest is renewable energy. Since energy is the engine of everything that does many works. For my research specifically on Organic Solar Cells’ power conversion performance using Plasmonic Nanoparticles at different layers of inverted Organic solar cells, I am studying the title “Unraveling Plasmon-Coupled Power Conversion Efficiency Enhancement in Wide-Band Gap Polymers-Based Organic Solar Cells: Both Experimental and Computational Approaches” at Addis Ababa University under the supervisors of Prof. Newayemedihin Aberra Tegegn and Dr. Nika Bekri Abdullah from Ethiopia. This study aims to solve the world’s energy problem and the Horn of Africa, which will contribute to the future of the rift specifically Ethiopia because Ethiopia is found in the Horn of Africa and is one of the parts of the rift.

I’ m interested in exploring and underscoring hominin behaviours in relation to food procurement strategies in the past, stone tools manufacture and the synergetic links between hominin-environmental interactions, cognition abilities and subsistence systems. Specifically, I uses phytolith analysis in combination with archaeological and plant micro-remains data in order to reflect the nature and type of environments that were occupied by early humans and the plant environments surrounding their habitats during the Pleistocene-Holocene epochs.

Mes recherches portent sur l’évolution des communautés de petits mammifères d’Afrique depuis la fin du Pliocène jusqu’à aujourd’hui. J’aborde plus particulièrement des questions concernant la taxinomie des rongeurs, et l’utilisation des assemblages fossiles à des fins de reconstruction paléoenvironnementale et d’outil biochronologique.

Pour y répondre, j’utilise différentes approches combinant mes connaissances en paléontologie, en anatomie et en écologie, ainsi que des outils de morphométrie géométrique et de machine learning.

Les assemblages que j’étudie proviennent principalement d’Afrique du Sud et du Botswana, et j’aimerais prochainement comparer les structures et dynamiques des communautés d’Afrique australe avec celles d’Afrique du Nord et de l’Est.

The Great African Rift includes several linguistic areas belonging to the four major language families of the continent (Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Kongo, Nilo-Saharan and Khoesan). The linguistic diversity of this area is the result of migrations and contacts, sometimes very ancient, between populations of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers. The comparison between languages suggests several migratory phases and contacts that have repeatedly modified the linguistic landscape. Some languages like Sandawe and Hadza spoken in Tanzania have similar sounds, clicks, to those of the Khoesan family found in Botswana and Namibia.

The sound systems of the Rift languages have particular sound types, some of which are not common in the world’s languages. The case of non-pulmonic consonants such as ejectives, implosives, and clicks is particularly notable. Hadza and Sandawe have sound systems with clicks, ejectives and prenasals. Iraqw, a South Cushitic language (Afroasiatic family) spoken in the Manyara and Arusha regions of Tanzania has a consonantal system that includes a contrast between modal and labialized consonants, a long series of unvoiced fricative consonants and a series of ejective consonants. Maasai, a Nilotic language, has a complete set of implosives in its phonological system, a complete system of vowels [+/- ATR], and tones. In our project, the focus is on several languages from different linguistic families to explore the phoneme production mechanisms of these languages.

I conducted my MA thesis on the coservational challenges of world heritage site of konso cultural landscape which is found in the great rift valley. I presented this on the 3rd GDR colloquium.

However for in the future i have a plan to do the same assessment on the Lower Omo Valley and Lower Awash Valley archaeological and paleontological world heritage sites.

I want to inquire conservational challenges of these to site.

Lower Valley of Awash paleo-anthropological site covers 150km2 where ‘Lucy’ or “ድንቅነሽ” Australopithecus Afarensis (3.2mya) and ‘Ardi’ (4.4mya) are found. It is inscribed by UNESCO in 1980.

Lower Valley of Omo paleontological site covers 165km2 where different human and animals fossil found. The site inscribed by UNESCO in 1980.

Based on the field trip experience, I observed the people were faced with a lot of climate uncertainties ” extreme weather events” leading to the occurrence of drought and flood interchangeable over years. The decline of natural resources within rift could be as a result of climate and environmental change which have been intensify by human activities. Other identify problems were as follows;

1. The Maasai pastoralist lived with their cattle’s within the rift which gave room for water contamination and other related sanitation issues resulting to water related illness among the populace which could affect their productivities (output).
2. The increasing population (human and animals) over the years could cause conflict between the farmers and pastoralist due to shrinking land for farming (rain fed agriculture) and grazing over the years.
3. There evidence of sheet and rill erosion process which could affect the fertility and condition of arable land for rain fed agriculture.
4. Depreciation of the ecological services within the Maasai conservation area of the rift was observe and needs urgent attention.
5. Drought and flood have affected the livelihood, health and well begin of the Massai people of the rift.
6. The people are living in hamlet and in dispersed form of settlement which could be difficult for the Narok government to provide preventive measures against diseases like malaria and water relate problems to the people.
7. There is need to understand the past climate before the development of the rift, present micro climate and predict what the future micro climate will be within the rift system. These will give more light on the implications

Quaternary studies in the field of animal communities with integrated approaches of paleontology, zooarchaeology and taphonomy. Actualist and (paleo)eco-ethological studies, especially on human and animal predation. Reconstruction of paleoenvironments and climatic context in the Plio-Pleistocene.

Research themes: Late Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies in Africa. I am interested in the organization of hunter-gatherer lithic technology, especially stone procurement. My research explores how technological organization can be studied to understand the major evolutionary and demographic changes of the last hundred-thousand years in Africa.