Yohannes Haile-Selassie Ambaye | |
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 Yohannes in 2017 | |
| Born | Yohannes Haile Selassie (1961-02-23)23 February 1961 (age 64)[1] |
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| Fields | Archeology |
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| Thesis | Late Miocene Mammalian Fauna from the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia (2001) |
| Doctoral advisor | Tim D. White |
Yohannes Haile-SelassieAmbaye (born 23 February 1961) is an Ethiopianpaleoanthropologist. An authority on pre-Homo sapienshominids, he particularly focuses his attention on theEast African Rift andMiddle Awash valleys.[2]He was curator ofPhysical Anthropology at theCleveland Museum of Natural History from 2002 until 2021, and now is serving as the director of theArizona State UniversityInstitute of Human Origins. Since founding the institute in 1981, he has been the third director afterDonald Johanson andWilliam Kimbel.[3]
Haile-Selassie began his tertiary education at theAddis Ababa University inAddis Ababa, graduating in the summer of 1982 with a B.A. degree in history. His first job was at the Center for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa.[4]
His graduate education began at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where Haile-Selassie was mentored byTim White and earned an M.A. in anthropology in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Integrative Biology in 2001.[5] In 2002, he became the Curator and Head ofPhysical Anthropology Department at theCleveland Museum of Natural History inCleveland,Ohio, where he works currently. He serves as an adjunct professor of Anthropology and Anatomy atCase Western Reserve University and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Institute of Paleoenvironment and Heritage Conservation,Mekelle University.
Yohannes is well known in the field of paleoanthropology for having a gift forfossil spotting, with his first fossil hunting expedition (White'sMiddle Awash Project) taking place in 1990. He has been instrumental in the discoveries of the type specimen (principal reference fossil) forAustralopithecus garhi andArdipithecus kadabba (both discovered in 1997), and he has also found fossil specimens ofArdipithecus ramidus,Australopithecus afarensis, and species ofHomo includingHomo erectus, as well asHomo sapiens. Since 2004, he has led digs in theMilleworeda of theAfar Region of Ethiopia (the Woranso-Mille Project). In June 2010, Haile-Selassie published a paper describingKadanuumuu, one of the specimens his group found in Afar.[6]
The research conducted by Haile-Selassie has been primarily funded by theLeakey Foundation.[7] He has published in theAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology andNature.[8][9]
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