Surafel Berhanu Abegaz

Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute, Associate Researcher

Surafel Berhanu Abegaz was born in June 1993 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Shortly after, he relocated to Gaborone, Botswana in 1996 where his father was a professor of microbiology at the University of Botswana. On graduating from high school, it was clear that his passion was for electronics and hence he enrolled for a Bachelor’s degree at University of Botswana in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2012. He was known for his enthusiasm in both theoretical and laboratory work and graduated in 2017 amongst the top five within the telecommunications specialization. At the time of graduation, Surafel had begun reading on Terahertz science and technology and the area caught his interest. After relocating back to Addis Ababa in 2018, he enrolled at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology of Addis Ababa University within the Master’s of Science in Communication Engineering program in the Antenna and Electromagnetic track. There he graduated with a thesis on Terahertz communication in 2020 and immediately began a research and development career at the former Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute now Space Science and Geospatial Institute. During his career, he has been involved in the design of RADAR circuits, smart antennas and machine learning. In 2021, he presented at Ethiopia’s first Artificial Intelligence exhibition preliminary research results on work he had begun regarding rock object detection using a convolutional neural network. Surafel has given training on millimeter wave circuits at the former Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute and on RADAR at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. His principal areas of research interest are in microwave and Terahertz active devices and circuits, smart antennas, signal processing and machine learning. He desires to begin a PhD in the area of 6G wireless and continue research with graphene technologies. Surafel is also involved in the development and formation of an Internet of Things and data intelligence startup where he is the principal technical lead of Aemere in particular the deep learning development.

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