Academic's bowl of dreams is overflowing with help of Chinese scholarship

Eyale Bayable Tegegne is one of the very few African scholars who specialized in studying land-atmosphere interaction across the Ethiopian highlands, often referred to as the Roof of Africa and the Water Tower of Africa.

The passionate researcher, who did the studies from 2015 to 2020 at the famed Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITP-CAS), however, said he would not have gained such academic excellence had it not been for the Chinese scholarship he received to pursue his dream.

"CAS has paved a road to realizing my research interests. This research area (land-atmosphere interaction) is new in my country and continent, and has practical implications in the future," the scholar said, who is now an assistant professor of Atmospheric Physics and Environment at the Addis Ababa University (AAU) in the Ethiopian capital.

The scholar, presently sharing his experience and knowledge to fellow Ethiopians at the AAU, said both the applied and basic researches that have been practiced and matured in China can be applied with some localization process in Ethiopia. He said his experience shows the broad cooperation space for Ethiopia and China in different fields of scientific researches.

According to Eyale, his inclination toward studying at the ITP-CAS was, for the most part, due to two major reasons: lack of access and proper educational facility at home, and abundant scholarship opportunities to Ethiopian scholars by renowned Chinese institutions.

For Eyale, the ITP, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences was a perfect place to fulfill his aspirations, courtesy to the rank of distinguished scholars and researchers available at the institute.

"Led by Professor Ma Yaoming, the Atmospheric Physics and Environment group of this institute is one of the most well-developed research groups," Eyale said, as he emphasized that Professor Ma's team, which has been doing similar studies in the Tibetan plateau, Himalaya and south of Himalaya regions, was extremely helpful for him to study the subject of his interest.

Eyale's most recent study, entitled Estimation of the Distribution of the Total Net Radiative Flux from Satellite and Automatic Weather Station Data in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, which was published as part of his PhD studies in partnership with the ITP professors, is the first of its kind to be conducted in the East African country.

The scholar, who affirmed that there is more research work in the pipeline for publication and ongoing research, also acknowledged the material support that he and his parent university received from the ITP to effectively undertake various research work.

According to Eyale, an instrument comprising high-end technologies has been installed in the Ethiopian highlands by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to boost collaboration in scientific research and educational exchange with the Center for Environmental Sciences at the Addis Ababa University.

Eyale said the scholarship opportunities provided by the Chinese government have boosted the people-to-people ties.

"China is offering scholarship opportunities for Ethiopian scholars. It is this scholarship opportunity that helped me study PhD in China. I am now serving my country with a rank of assistant professors in Addis Ababa University," he said.