Prof. Zinabu Gebremariam, Founding President of Hawassa University (From 1999 to 2007).

Academic rank: Professor.

Nationality:    Ethiopian.

Prof. Zinabu Gebremariam Woldesenbet, Professor of Freshwater Ecology

Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences

Hawassa University; email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

President Work Experience at Hawassa University

• Zinabu Gebremariam is a Founding President of Hawassa University (for 8 years).

In addition to the President of Hawassa University, Prof. Zinabu served as:-

• Zinabu Gebremariam is a Professor of Freshwater Ecology at Hawassa University.  He received B.Sc. in Biology (1978) and M.Sc. in Zoology (1982) from Addis Ababa University, and a PhD in Biology (1988) from the University of Waterloo, Canada.    
• He has served at various academic leadership positions for more than two decades.  He was a Department Head (for 2 years), the Assistant Dean (for 3 years) and Dean (for 5 years) of Awassa College of Agriculture, and Director General of the Ethiopian Higher Education Strategy Center (for 5 years) - in addition to a number of interim positions at institutional and national levels.
• Zinabu was founding member of the steering committee of African NESS (African Network for Earth System Science), member of the International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology (SIL) and Freshwater Biological Association – FBA.  He is currently founding member of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS), member of the Biological Society of Ethiopia (BSE), and member of the Ethiopian Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Association (EFASA).

Prof. Zinabu honors and awards include: 

• The Ethiopian Science and Technology National Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Higher Education Teaching and Research (2008);
• The University of Waterloo (UW - Canada) Faculty of Science Alumni of Honor Awards (2007); the GRIGORE ANTIPA Award from the Rumanian Academy – Bucharest; King Baudouin Award from the International Foundation for Science (IFS) - Stockholm; and about six awards and recognitions as a PhD student.
• Fellowships and grants awarded to him include research fellowships at: Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Norway; University of Uppsala, Sweden; University of Florida, Gainesville (USA) – Fulbright Fellow; and Stroud Water Research Center of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, USA.
• Zinabu Gebremariam has been involved in the design, implementation, and follow-up of a number of collaborative projects with many international and national institutions. He has been involved, in different capacities, in various training workshops on Higher Education, Curriculum Development, Strategic Planning, Project Planning and Administration, Leadership and Management, Civil Service Reform, etc.