37 Notable alumni of
Addis Ababa University
Updated:
Addis Ababa University is 1477th in the world, 34th in Africa, and 1st in Ethiopia by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 37 notable alumni from Addis Ababa University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Abiy Ahmed Ali
- Occupations
- politicianmilitary personnel
- Biography
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Abiy Ahmed Ali is an Ethiopian politician serving as the third Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018, and as the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea". Abiy served as the third chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that governed Ethiopia for 28 years and the first person of Oromo descent to hold that position. Abiy is a member of the Ethiopian parliament, and was a member of the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), one of the then four coalition parties of the EPRDF, until its rule ceased in 2019 and he formed his own party, the Prosperity Party.
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Isaias Afwerki
- Occupations
- dictatorpolitician
- Biography
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Isaias Afwerki is an Eritrean politician and partisan who has been the president of Eritrea since shortly after he led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) to victory in 24 May 1991, ending the 30-year-old war for independence from Ethiopia. In addition to being president, Isaias has been the chairman of Eritrea's sole legal political party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). As Eritrea has never had a functioning constitution, no elections, no legislature and no published budget, Isaias has been the sole power in the country, controlling its judiciary and military. Hence, scholars and historians have long considered him to be a dictator, described his regime as totalitarian, by way of forced conscription; the United Nations and Amnesty International cited him for human rights violations. In 2022, Reporters Without Borders ranked Eritrea, under the government of Isaias, last out of 180 countries in its Press Freedom Index. In 2023 Eritrea ranked 174th out of 180 countries on the Press Freedom Index.
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Meles Zenawi
- Occupations
- politicianmilitary personnel
- Biography
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Meles Zenawi Asres (Tigringa and Amharic: መለስ ዜናዊ ኣስረስ; pronounced [mɛllɛs zenawi asrɛs] listen, born Legesse Zenawi Asres (9 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) was an Ethiopian soldier and politician who served as President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and then Prime Minister of Ethiopia from 1995 until his death in 2012.
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Hailemariam Desalegn
- Occupations
- international forum participantpolitician
- Biography
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Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe is an Ethiopian politician who served as prime minister of Ethiopia from 2012 to 2018. He also previously served as deputy prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi from 2010 to 2012. After Meles' death in August 2012, Hailemariam succeeded him as prime minister, initially in an acting capacity. He was then elected as the chair of the EPRDF, the ruling party, on 15 September 2012. Hailemariam also served as the chairperson of the African Union from 2013 to 2014.
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Debretsion Gebremichael
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Debretsion Gebremichael is an Ethiopian politician serving as the chairman of Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). He was previously the president of the Tigray Region. His position as titular head of the Tigray Region was disputed by the federal government of Ethiopia who in November 2020 appointed Mulu Nega as the chief executive of the Transitional Government of Tigray, succeeded by Abraham Belay. From July 2021 to March 2023, Debretsion again led the Tigray Region, while Abraham Belay left the transitional government to become Ethiopia's minister of Defence.
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Rupiah Banda
- Occupations
- politiciandiplomat
- Biography
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Rupiah Bwezani Banda was a Zambian politician who served as the fourth president of Zambia from 2008 to 2011, taking over from Levy Mwanawasa. Banda was an active participant in politics from early in the presidency of Kenneth Kaunda, during which time he held several diplomatic posts.
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Lemma Megersa
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Lemma Megersa is an Ethiopian politician who served as the Minister of Defense 2019 to 2020. He was also the president of the Oromia Region and deputy chairman of the ruling party in the region, the Oromo Democratic Party. Since the formation of the Prosperity Party, Lemma has been independent.
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Demeke Mekonnen
- Years
- 1963-.. (age 61)
- Occupations
- international forum participantpolitician
- Biography
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Demeke Mekonnen Hassen is an Ethiopian politician, former deputy prime minister of Ethiopia, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and former vice-president of the Prosperity Party. He previously served as chairman of the Amhara Democratic Party (ADP) and deputy chair of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) until the dissolution of the two in December 2019.
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Meaza Ashenafi
- Occupations
- judgelawyeractivist
- Biography
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Meaza Ashenafi is an Ethiopian lawyer. In November 2018, she was appointed by the Federal Parliamentary Assembly as President of the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia until her resignation on 17 January 2023.
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Aklilu Lemma
- Occupations
- biologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Aklilu Lemma was an Ethiopian pathologist. In 1989, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for discovering and campaigning relentlessly for an affordable preventative against bilharzia."
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Dawud Ibsa Ayana
- Years
- 1952-.. (age 72)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Dawud Ibsaa Ayana is an Ethiopian politician who is the chairman of the Oromo Liberation Front, an Ethiopian political party established in 1973.
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Yohannes Haile-Selassie
- Occupations
- university teacherpaleoanthropologist
- Biography
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Yohannes Haile-Selassie Ambaye is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist. An authority on pre-Homo sapiens hominids, he particularly focuses his attention on the East African Rift and Middle Awash valleys. He was curator of Physical Anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from 2002 until 2021, and now is serving as the director of the Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins. Since founding the institute in 1981, he has been the third director after Donald Johanson and William Kimbel.
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Yetnebersh Nigussie
- Occupations
- international forum participantjuristhuman rights activist
- Biography
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Yetnebersh Nigussie is an Ethiopian lawyer and disability rights activist. In 2017, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her inspiring work promoting the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities, allowing them to realise their full potential and changing mindsets in our societies."
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Zeresenay Alemseged
- Occupations
- archaeologistpaleoanthropologistprehistorianresearcheranthropologist
- Biography
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Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged is an paleoanthropologist who is a faculty member at the University of Chicago. In 2013, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2021. In 2022, he was appointed to the Comité Scientifique International du Musée d’Anthropologie Préhistorique de Monaco and the Pontifical Academy of Science. Alemseged is best known for his discovery, on 10 December 2000, of Selam, also referred to as the "Dikika child" or “Lucy’s child”, the almost-complete fossilized remains of a 3.3 million-year-old child of the species Australopithecus afarensis. The “world’s oldest child”, she is the most complete skeleton of a human ancestor discovered to date. Selam represents a milestone in understanding of human and pre-human evolution and contributes significantly to understanding of the biology and childhood of early species in the human lineage; a subject about which we have very little information. Alemseged discovered Selam while working with the Dikika Research Project (DRP), a multi-national research project funded in part by the National Science Foundation, which he both initiated in 1999 and leads. The DRP has thus far made many important paleoanthropological discoveries and returns to the field each year to conduct further important research. Alemseged's specific research centers on the discovery and interpretation of hominin fossil remains and their environments, with emphasis on fieldwork designed to acquire new data on early hominin skeletal biology, environmental context, and behavior.
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Birtukan Mideksa
- Occupations
- politicianjudge
- Biography
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Birtukan Mideksa is an Ethiopian politician and former judge who has served as chairwoman of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) from 2018 to 2023. She was the founder and leader of the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party from 2008 to 2010.
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Workneh Gebeyehu
- Occupations
- international forum participantpolitician
- Biography
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Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo is an Ethiopian politician. In September 2012, he was appointed Ministry of Transport and he has served as an elected member of Addis Ababa City Council.
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Shimelis Abdisa
- Born in
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Ethiopia - Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Shimelis Abdisa is an Ethiopian politician serving as the president of the Oromia Region since 18 April 2019.
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Berhane Asfaw
- Occupations
- archaeologistpaleoanthropologistprehistorianpaleontologistanthropologist
- Biography
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Berhane Asfaw is an Ethiopian paleontologist of Rift Valley Research Service, who co-discovered human skeletal remains at Herto Bouri, Ethiopia later classified as Homo sapiens idaltu, proposed as an early subspecies of anatomically modern humans.
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Wallelign Mekonnen
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Wallelign Mekonnen Kassa was an Ethiopian Marxist student activist and militant active in the Ethiopian Student Movement from the mid-1960s until his death in 1972. Wallelign was the author of the highly influential but contentious article "On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia" published in 1969.
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Segenet Kelemu
- Enrolled in Addis Ababa University
- 1974-1979 graduated with bachelor's degree in botany
- Occupations
- botanist
- Biography
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Segenet Kelemu is an Ethiopian scientist, noted for her research as a molecular plant pathologist, and outstanding scientific leadership. For close to three decades, Segenet and her team's research has contributed to addressing agricultural constraints in Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America.
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Redwan Hussein
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Redwan Hussein is an Ethiopian politician who is serving as Director General of the National Intelligence and Security Service. He previously served as National security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. He previously served as Deputy Minister of foreign affairs and Ambassador of Ethiopia to Eritrea.
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Takele Uma Benti
- Years
- 1981-.. (age 43)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Takele Uma Banti is an Ethiopian politician who had served as the Minister for Mines Petroleum of Ethiopia from 18 August 2020 to 14 January 2023. He was the 31st Mayor of Addis Ababa from 2018 to 2023.
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Berhane Gebre-Christos
- Occupations
- politiciandiplomat
- Biography
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Berhane Gebre-Christos is an Ethiopian politician. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia from 2010 to 2012. He was also the Foreign Spokesperson for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) from 1979 to 1988.
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Bewketu Seyoum
- Occupations
- novelistwriter
- Biography
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Bewketu Seyoum is an Ethiopian writer and poet from Debre Markos of Ethiopia. He studied psychology at Addis Ababa University and published his first collection of poems, Nwari Alba Gojowoch (Unmanned Cottage) in 2000, a year after graduating. Since then, he has published two further poetry collections and two novels, and has narrated short stories on CD. In 2008, he received the best young writer award of Ethiopia from the President. Some of his poetry has appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, The Big Green Issue (2008), and Callaloo (2011).
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Mulugeta Bekele
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Mulugeta Bekele is an Ethiopian scientist and academic. He is an associate Professor of Physics at Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia. He completed his PhD in Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1997. He has been awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize by the American Physical Society (APS) "For tireless efforts in defense of human rights and freedom of expression and education anywhere in the world, and for inspiring students, colleagues and others to do the same." He is the president of Ethiopian Physical Society since October 1998 and an Associate Member of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy since May 1999.
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Mustafa Muhummed Omer
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Mustafa Muhumed Omar, also called Cagjar, is an Ethiopian politician who is the current president of the Somali Region and also the Deputy Chairman of the Somali Democratic Party, a member of Ethiopia’s newly formed Prosperity Party led by Abiy Ahmed, the sitting Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
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Betelhem Dessie
- Occupations
- computer scientist
- Biography
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Betelhem Dessie is an Ethiopian web and mobile technologies developer. She is currently a Founder and CEO of iCog- Anyone Can Code (ACC). She owns four patented projects individually and an additional three in collaboration. Betelhem has been named "the youngest pioneer in Ethiopia's fast emerging tech scene" by CNN.
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Fitsum Arega
- Born in
- Ethiopia
- Occupations
- politiciandiplomat
- Biography
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Fitsum Arega Gebrekidan is an Ethiopian diplomat who is the current Ethiopian Ambassador to Canada. He was the Director General of the Ethiopian Investment Commission and the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and also served as Ethiopia's Ambassador to the United States. He presented his credentials to Governor General of Canada Mary Simon in September 2022.
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Lia Tadesse
- Occupations
- physicianpolitician
- Biography
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Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin is an Ethiopian politician and physician who served as the Minister of Health from 12 March 2020 until 8 February 2024. Prior to her appointment, Lia served as State Minister of Health from November 2018. She also served as an Executive Director at the University of Michigan's Center for International Reproductive Health Training (CIRHT) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a CEO and Vice Provost in St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) in Addis Ababa and as a Project Director of USAID's Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) at Jhpiego-Ethiopia.
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Osman Saleh Mohammed
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Osman Saleh Mohammed is an Eritrean government minister. He served as the first minister of education following independence, serving in that position from 1993 to 2007. He has oversaw the transition from the revolutionary EPLF school system to a national education system.
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Alemu Aga
- Years
- 1950-.. (age 74)
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
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Alemu Aga is an Ethiopian musician, singer, and master of the Begena.
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Sebsebe Demissew
- Occupations
- botanist
- Biography
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Sebsebe Demissew is a Professor of Plant Systematics and Biodiversity at Addis Ababa University and Executive Director of the Gullele Botanic Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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Tesfaye Gessesse
- Occupations
- actortranslatorstage actor
- Biography
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Tesfaye Gessesse was an Ethiopian stage and film actor regarded as one of the most important exponents of Ethiopian modern theatre. During a career that spanned 40 years, he was an actor, director, and theatre administrator. He wrote and directed several plays which have a great relevance in the modern history of Ethiopian culture.
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Yodit Getahun
- Occupations
- beauty pageant contestant
- Biography
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Yodit Getahun is an Ethiopian beauty pageant contestant. She was crowned Miss Ethiopia World for 2003, represented Ethiopia in three International pageants, and was awarded two titles. She participated in the "Miss Tourism of the Globe" Contest in Moscow, Russia where she won a minor sponsor title called "Miss Neva 2003". She was awarded the "Miss Congeniality" title at Miss Earth beauty pageant in Manila, Philippines. She was also sponsored by London-based Ethiopian Life Foundation, and participated in the Miss International Beauty Pageant in Tokyo, Japan.
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Teferra Wolde-Semait
- Occupations
- civil servant
- Biography
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Teferra Wolde-Semait was an Ethiopian economist who has served as Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, and chairman of the board of the National Bank of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1982.
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Sinknesh Ejigu
- Years
- 1956-.. (age 68)
- Occupations
- chemistpolitician
- Biography
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Sinknesh Ejigu Wolde-Mariam is an Ethiopian politician, chemist and businesswoman. She is currently Ethiopian Ambassador to Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
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Juneydi Basha
- Years
- 1961-.. (age 63)
- Occupations
- politicianbusinessperson
- Biography
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Juneidi Basha is an Ethiopian business executive who served as the General Manager of Harar Brewery and Vice President of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations. He most recently served as the President of the Ethiopian Football Federation.
