She received her PhD in Natural Resources and Life Sciences from BOKU, Vienna (2015). Upon her return to her home country, Meseret has been involved in both academic and leadership role at the University of Gondar. Her immediate involvement started in the development of the PhD curriculum in Natural Resource and Environmental Management as a committee member at the University of Gondar. A major milestone in her career was when she became a candidate for a higher leadership position in the university. She had served the university as vice president for five years. This was a major shift in terms of gender balance in university leadership, as Meseret was the first and only woman to hold a senior leadership position. At the end of her term as vice president she became the manager of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of Gondar. Although the leadership role has taken up much of her time, she has also been involved in research and advising students. Now an Associate Professor of Forests and Livelihoods, she has a strong background in sustainable land use and ecosystem services, supervises more than 30 MSc and three PhD students and contributes to various research projects, including EU-funded initiatives on sustainable energy management in Ethiopia.
Desta says her PhD was the first opportunity and exposure she had outside her country. It was a wonderful experience in many ways: First of all, the experience she gained from her supervisors was important. How they supported her to successfully complete her doctorate was an important lesson that she applied to her students back home. Secondly, it opened her eyes to how she could live and work with international communities. Thirdly, she had a chance to reconnect with her supervisors and applied for an Ernst Mach scholarship at the OeAD. Unfortunately, she couldn't take advantage of this opportunity as her role in project management did not allow her to take three months' leave.
In addition to extensive teaching and supervisory experience, she has been actively involved in key research areas such as forestry, agroforestry and their relevance to livelihood improvement. This is mainly because Ethiopia has huge potential resources that have not yet been used sustainably to improve the livelihoods of its people. One of these untapped potentials is agroforestry.
After completing her PhD, she was involved in several national and international multidisciplinary projects. The first one was Social Inclusion and Energy Management for Informal Urban Settlements (SES), a project funded by the EU Erasmus+ programme. This project was led by the Danube University Krems. It was a consortium of three Ethiopian universities and three European universities, including the University of Kassel in Germany and the University of Twente in the Netherlands. This was another opportunity to come back to Austria after completing my PhD. Many case studies and a book chapter on energy management were published and she had the opportunity to present these findings in Germany and the Netherlands.
Meseret also had the opportunity to spend six months as a research fellow at the University of Michigan, USA, as part of the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholar (UMAPS) programme.
Meseret has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences on topics such as agroforestry, energy management and land use change. Her academic work also extends to project and curriculum development, research proposal review, and community service and outreach. Her publications include work on land use impacts on ecosystem services and gender roles in agroforestry. Her research has had a significant impact on environmental management practices both in Ethiopia and internationally.
