Afield Trips | Astrobus Ethiopia – Yabebal Fantaye

Afield Trips is a series of portraits of artists and cultural activists. Each episode takes us into their lives to give us a glimpse of their context and help us expand our understanding of why they do what they do.

 

The 2018 Afield Fellowship was awarded to Cosmologist and data scientist Yabebal Fantaye for his program Astrobus Ethiopia. Astrobus is a mobile outreach program concerned with science, art and innovation. Each iteration is a journey carried out by driving a vehicle from place to place through different parts of Ethiopia sharing insightful knowledge through creative means with thousands of students. Yabebal strongly believes that exposing young students to the strategies and the art of critical and scientific thinking is an essential element to understanding the contemporary global condition. Through the project he offers ways to inspire, empower and connect communities to foster excellence.

 

Yabebal Fantaye is a cosmologist and a data scientist with over a decade research experience in mathematical and statistical cosmology as well as applying artificial intelligence to extracting relevant data from satellite images of earth. His research interest includes applying artificial intelligence and advanced statistical methods to cosmological data sets in order to understand the nature of the universe and to satellite images of the Earth in order to find alternative ways to monitor African development progress.