MIT Conference on HIV/AIDS & Famine

CRISES IN ETHIOPIA: HIV/AIDS & FAMINE A Conference Sponsored by
The Experimental Studies Group (ESG) at MIT & Ethiopian Students of the Boston Area
February, 22 2002  

Where is it?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Mass Ave. Cambridge, Room 10-250 [Free and open to the public ]

Dr. Seyoum Ayehunie (Director of African Aids Initiative International)

 The AAII Vice-President, Dr. Seyoum Ayehunie, PhD, has broad experience in the field of HIV/AIDS. Early in his career he studied the HIV viruses at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Since then he has become a pioneer in HIV research in Ethiopia, setting up the first HIV testing laboratory in the nation in 1984. He was also instrumental in the opening of HIV screening laboratories in different institutions in Addis Ababa and in various regions throughout the country. Dr. Ayehunie was the first scientist to train Ethiopian laboratory technicians in HIV-testing procedures for the Ethiopian Nutrition and Health Research Institute and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society. Recently, he engaged in HIV research with the globally renown, Harvard-affiliated Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He also assisted HIV/AIDS researchers studying the virus in East African countries such as Tanzania. He has attended and presented papers at many international AIDS conferences and has published over 30 scientific papers. Dr. Ayehunie was also one of the key organizers of the    First International Conference on AIDS in Ethiopia: Fighting for Life, and served as Scientific Chairman for the conference.

  Dr. Brook Hailu (Deputy Ambassador of Ethiopia)

Dr. Brook Hailu is the Deputy Ambassador of Ethiopia. He holds a B.A. in International Relations and Political Science from Addis Ababa University and received his PhD, with a specialization in International Political Communication, from the Faculty of Media and Communication Sciences in Leipzig University. Dr. Brook was awarded a Post Graduate Certificate from the Contemporary History Institute, at Ohio University. He served as a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Addis Ababa University and for several years as a part-time lecturer at the Institute for Communication and Media Sciences, Leipzig University and at the International Institute for Journalism in Berlin. Furthermore, from 1997-2000 he distinguished himself as the External Relations Officer of Addis Ababa University. In 2000, Dr. Brook joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, American and European General Directorate. Since January 2001, Dr. Brook has been appointed as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy Of Ethiopia in Washington, DC.

Professor Suzanne Grant Lewis (Director of the International Education Policy Program, Harvard University)

Dr. Suzanne Grant Lewis focuses on policy efforts to address educational inequalities, especially in countries in democratic transition. She has two research projects with colleagues at the University of Witwatersrand; she is examining the implications of new school finance and governance policies for South Africa’s broader goals of equity and democratic participation. She is also leading an exploratory study of the perspectives of educators of girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. Prior to joining the HGSE faculty, Grant Lewis spent over five years in southern Africa, serving as an advisor on research, policy, and planning, to the Namibian and Malawian ministries of education. She has also lived and worked in Kenya and Tanzania for six years. She teaches courses on education for national development, educational policy and planning in developing countries, and addressing gender inequalities in education. Grant Lewis has written on the notion of participation in school governance, the promotion of democratic decision-making in education, the role of microcomputers in African development, and the first national primary assessment in Namibia.

Dr. Mesfin Wolde Mariam (Professor at AAU and Fellow at W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University)

Dr. Mesfin Wolde Mariam is one of Ethiopia’s leading geographers, he has faced harassment and imprisonment for his work, which posits that Ethiopia’s famine, was caused by political rather than natural forces. He has argued that basic social and cultural changes, together with land reform, must take place in order for the cycle of famine to end. A senior Fulbright Scholar and founder of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, Dr. Wolde Mariam was arrested on May 8, 2001, in relation to a seminar that he and a colleague conducted on academic rights and freedoms. Dr. Wolde Mariam is a fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research in collaboration with the UCHRS.

Professor James C. McCann (Professor of History and Director of African Studies Center, Boston University)

Dr. James C. McCann is professor of history and director of the African Studies Center at Boston University. Dr. McCann has been a long time friend of the Ethiopian people and a noted scholar of Ethiopian studies. His life long attachment to Ethiopia began with his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1973-75. Shortly thereafter, Dr. McCann received his PhD from Michigan State University. Since then Dr. McCann has written countless articles on issues ranging from agriculture and famine to the environmental history of East Africa. Of his books, the two most familiar to students of Ethiopia are From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia: A Rural History 1900-35 and People of the Plow: A Modern History of Highland Agriculture in Ethiopia. Dr. McCann’s current book project is entitled Maize and Grace: Corn, History, and Agricultural Landscapes in Africa, 1500-199.

Professor Angela Raven-Roberts (Director of Academic and Training Programs at the Feinstein Famine Center)

 Dr. Angela Raven-Roberts is the Director of Academic and Training Programs at the Feinstein Famine Center. She teaches courses on Complex Emergencies and on Gender and Humanitarian Intervention and Children and War. She was formerly Senior Program Director for the United Nations Children’s Fund and has also worked as Director for Save the Children (US) and Oxfam America in Africa. Dr. Raven-Roberts has also worked for many years with Oxfam and Save the Children in Ethiopia Currently; Dr. Raven-Roberts is co-editing a book on Gender and Peacekeeping with Dr. Dyan Mazurana of the University of Montana. She holds a BA in African History and social anthropology from London School of Oriental and African Studies, M.Litt. In Social Anthropology from Oxford University, and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota.

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