Tesfamichael Awoke has been a HORN project sandpit fellow since April 2020 to investigate the social, economic and health impact of COVID 19 and its control measures on rural communities of Ethiopia. By training, he is an epidemiologist with a special focus on clinical epidemiology. He has earned his Master of science degree in psychosocial and clinical Epidemiology from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Moreover, he graduated with a Master of Public Health from the University of Gondar in Ethiopia.
Currently, he is the director of Butajira Health and Demographic surveillance system (HDSS) managed under the School of Public Health at Addis Ababa University (AAU). He oversees the overall operation of the HDSS to make sure that the data is generated at highest possible quality to inform health program managers and policy makers in the country and elsewhere. His main research area of interest is the application of advanced statistical methods and data science in the management and analysis of longitudinal and big data more specifically on demography and child health. His passion leans towards the translation of innovation and technology for improved health care delivery system and for the betterment of society at large.