Short Biography of Dr. Yedilfana Setarge Mekonnen

Dr. Yedilfana Setarge Mekonnen is an Associate Professor at the Center for Environmental Science within the College of Natural and Computational Sciences at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and holds prominent leadership positions as Vice President of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia and founding President of the Computational Science and Engineering Society of Ethiopia. He earned his master’s degree in physical chemistry from Addis Ababa University in 2011 and completed his PhD at the Technical University of Denmark in 2015. In addition to his role with the African Materials Research Society, Dr. Yedilfana has represented Ethiopia and Africa in various prestigious professional networks, including the Joint Undertaking African Materials Institute (JUAMI), the Africa School of Electronic Structure Methods and Applications (ASESMA), and the U.S.–Africa Initiative in Electronic Structure. Furthermore, he serves as a regional representative to EURAXESS Africa and holds an executive position within the Federation of African Societies of Chemistry (FASC).

His research focuses on innovative energy storage and conversion technologies, including rechargeable lithium and sodium ion batteries, metal-air batteries, redox flow batteries, perovskite and dye-sensitized solar cells, proton exchange membrane fuel cells, CO₂ conversion, hydrogen energy, and bioenergy. Dr. Yedilfana mainly employs advanced computational materials science methods such as density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) to explore the structural and electronic properties and reaction mechanisms of various energy systems.

He has successfully secured numerous national and international research grants from organizations like TWAS/UNESCO, the African Center for Technological Studies (ACTS), the International Science Programme Fellowship (ISPF-UK), and Addis Ababa University. He has published over 40 articles in reputable journals, he has also supervised numerous graduate students.