Berhane Asfaw is a Paleoanthropologist and is Managing Director of the Rift Valley Research Services. He is Fellow of the National Academy of Science of the United States (2008) and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) 2010. He initiated and directed the innovative national Paleoanthropological Inventory of Ethiopia and has discovered dozens of world-class archaeological and paleontological sites. His research and publications demonstrated that anatomically modern humans were present in Africa about 160,000 years ago.