Elected: 2019
Country (Nationality)
Ethiopia
Discipline
Agricultural & Nutritional Sciences
Bio
Professor Sileshi Gudeta Weldesemayat is an Ethiopian national with over 25 years of experience in agricultural research for development (AR4D) in Africa. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Since 2017 he has also been Deputy Coordinator of Design, Performance and Evaluation of Experiments in the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Forest Ecology and Management. He holds a BSc degree in Biology, MSc degree in Agriculture and PhD degree in Ecology. Previously he worked as a Lecturer at the Alemaya University of Agriculture in Ethiopia (1987-1997), Research Associate at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya (2000-2001), a Scientist (2002-2011) at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) based in Zambia and Malawi. From 2011 to 2014 he was the regional representative of ICRAF for the southern Africa region, where he managed the Malawi Agroforestry Food Security Programme and he developed a vibrant multi-stakeholder AR4D program called Building a Large Evergreen Agriculture Network for Southern Africa implemented in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa. He was nominated as AAS Fellow in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of Fertilizer Trees and his exemplary leadership in promoting green technologies to counter land degradation, climate change impacts and improving productivity and food security in Africa. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers in journals and book chapters. He has also coedited a book entitled Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics in 2008 and co-authored two books entitled Termite Management in Agroforestry in 2016 and Bamboo: Climate change adaptation and mitigation in 2020.