Ambassador Assefa most recently served as vice president of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia’s leading institution of higher education. Ambassador Assefa has also worked with a variety of institutions involved in strengthening civil society, including the InterAfrica Group, Center for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights, African initiative for a Democratic World Order, Heinrich Boll Foundation, and the Bonn International Centre for Conversion. Most recently, he was a founding member of “Ethiopia Past and Future,” an ad hoc group composed of ambassadors from leading donor countries and members of Ethiopian civil society that seeks to promote dialogue in the aftermath of the 2005 Ethiopian elections.

Among his many civic engagements, Ambassador Assefa is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Development Commission.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Ambassador Assefa holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and economics from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. After receiving his doctorate in political science from Princeton University, Ambassador Assefa taught at Princeton University, Williams College and Rutgers University. Ambassador Assefa’s father was also an Ethiopian diplomat, serving as his country’s ambassador to Germany from 1961 to 1964 and again from 1970 to 1974.