I am molecular biologist and agronomist. I have been working as an agronomist in the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and as a post-doctorial researcher at the Institute of Plant Sciences in the University of Bern, Switzerland. Since 2006, I am the Leader of the Tef Improvement Project (TIP) hosted at the Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern. Tef is under-researched crop extensively grown in the Horn of Africa. In addition to being a healthy food crop due to lack of gluten, tef adapts to diverse climatic and soil conditions.

Currently I am working as Senior Deputy Director in my organization heading the Food chemistry Division. My team is responsible for the Indian Food Composition Database and we are currently working on it to bring out the new Database containing 165 nutrients and bioactive substances in foods by the end of 2013. I work closely with the FAO and am the regional coordinator for SAARCFOODS a regional body under the INFOODS/FAO. I am a member of the IUNS task force on Indigenous foods and nutrition as well as IUNS task force on food composition.