ProtagonistDr. Alemayehu Gebissa

Born in 1965 in the empire of Ethiopia. Alemayehu Gebissa arrived in the GDR in 1986 from what was then the People’s Republic of Ethiopia. Following a ten-month language course and preparatory studies at the Herder Institute in Leipzig, he enrolled at the University of Rostock. He succeeded in changing his allocated subject of study to one of his choice and from 1987–92 studied land improvement engineering (a subject known later as environmental culture and environmental protection and today as environmental engineering at the University of Rostock). As a particularly gifted student, he received a merit-based scholarship from the GDR. His plan of doing a PhD in East Germany was temporarily jeopardized after 1989, but he was able to proceed with his doctorate after unification.

Today Alemayehu Gebissa is professor at the Institute for Geotechnical Engineering and Coastal Engineering at the University of Rostock and is also honorary professor in highway engineering at Jimma University in Ethiopia.