Dr. Asfaw is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who has done field and laboratory research in Ethiopia since the first Middle Awash season in 1981. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, he served until 1992 as the director of the National Museum of Ethiopia. Dr. Asfaw has written numerous publications on fossil hominids and worked extensively on the recovery and analysis of several notable fossils, including the cranial remains of Ardipithecus, Australopithecus garhi, a 2.5 million-year-old hominid species, and Homo sapiens idaltu, a million-year-old Homo sapiens whose child-size cranium he discovered. As co-leader of the Middle Awash research project, Dr. Asfaw works in Addis Ababa and the Afar to coordinate each field season.