Dr. Wossenu Abtew is a registered professional civil engineer and a certified water resource engineer by the American Academy of Water Resource Engineers. He has been working in the field of water resources for close to 30 years. He is trained in agricultural engineering and is also a hydrologist. He earned his Ph.D. in interdisciplinary engineering focusing on civil engineering and agricultural engineering from Texas Tech University in 1989. He earned his Master of Science degree in agricultural engineering from Texas Tech University in 1986.
Dr. Abtew has co-authored and co-edited books on the Nile River basin and other topics: Proceedings of the 2008 Workshop on Hydrology and Ecology of the Nile River Basin under Extreme Climatic Conditions; Nile River Basin Ecohydrological Challenges, Climate Change and Hydropolitics; Evaporation and Evapotranspiration Measurements and Estimations; Landscape Dynamics, Soil and Hydrological Processes in Varied Climates; and Extreme Hydrology and Climate Variability Monitoring, Modeling, Adaptation and Mitigation (in process). Dr. Abtew has 60 publications as books, book chapters, journal and proceedings articles in addition to over 70 conference papers and technical reports. He has published papers on the Nile river basin. Dr. Abtew is a Principal Engineer at the South Florida Water Management District. He has over 27 years of experience in water resources at the South Florida Water management District.
He is also an affiliated faculty in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University. Dr. Shimelis Dessu is a water resource engineer at Florida International University (FIU). Dr. Dessu earned B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees in Civil Engineering from Addis Ababa University and M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Hydrology and Water Resources from Florida International University. Dr. Dessu is certified Diplomate, Water resource Engineer and a registered professional engineer in Ethiopia and USA with 15 years of global experience in research and practice. Dr. Dessu has worked on projects in USA, Africa and the Middle East in the areas of hydrology, water resource planning and management, water infrastructure, weather and climate systems, remote sensing and environmental restoration. Dr.
Dessu has published his research findings in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and South Florida in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He taught multiple courses in universities in Ethiopia and USA. He has also worked with the Nile Basin Initiative and South Florida Water Management District.