Dr. Alebel Bayrau Weldesilassie is a Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute (formers Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). He is currently coordinating the Poverty and Social Welfare Policy Studies Center. He worked as a country Economist (Ethiopia program) in the International Growth Centre, directed by LSE and Oxford Universities, UK. He served as a member of the national technical committee on various Sectoral Policy and Strategy formulation in Ethiopia. He was also teaching and serves as board of examiners for graduate students at the faculty of Business and Economics, Addis Ababa University. He was an EASST fellow at the University of California Berkeley, USA in 2014. He obtained his PhD in Resource and production Economics from Hohenheim University, Germany in 2008; M.Sc. in Economics from Addis Ababa University and in Agricultural Economics from Alemaya University, Ethiopia.

His research broadly focuses on micro-development economics with application of quantitative micro-econometrics and impact evaluation techniques. He has published in internationally peer reviewed economics journals and co-authored many research reports and working papers. He led many research projects related to agriculture, human capital, urban development, climate change, and Industrial Park development in Ethiopia. He is an active member of different professional associations including Ethiopian Economics Association, African Agricultural Economics Association and International Association of Agricultural Economics.