Dr. Tadesse is a principal scientist and lead bread wheat breeder at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) since June 2010. Dr Tadesse has previously worked at CIMMYT, Mexico (2009-2010) as postdoctoral wheat breeder and in the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute as crop breeder (1993-2008). He has received his PhD (cum laude) in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Technical University of Munich, Germany; M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from Addis Ababa and Alemaya Universities, respectively, in Ethiopia.
He leads the bread wheat breeding program at ICARDA. More than 80 wheat varieties have been released from his program across many countries including 12 heat tolerant wheat varieties in Ethiopia. He has supervised more than 20 PhD students; and published more than 150 research articles.
