Dr. Solomon Abebe Asfaw received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia; an M.Sc. degree in Physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; a second M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree specializing in energy system analysis from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer, Israel.

At UC Berkeley Dr. Asfaw worked with Professor Dan Kammen on a research project to help improve access to electricity in East Africa.  The research points to limits of current planning models used for this region including (a) dependence on the largely suppressed historical demand as a proper indication of future demand in these countries (b) reliance on centralized generation and direct grid connection as means of electrification (c) emphasis on conventional generating resource types in power system planning studies (d) low consideration to the impact of national and regional electricity access policy (e) reliance on low spatial and temporal resolution data. He is currently the Senior Energy Officer at the African Development Bank, Ethiopia Country Office.