Tuskegee appoints Habtemariam as dean

Tuskegee University has appointed Dr. Tsegaye Habtemariam as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, effective Jan. 3. He succeeds Dr. Alfonza Atkinson, who died in late 2004. Dr. Elizabeth Graham served as interim dean.

A Tuskegee faculty member since 1979, Dr. Habtemariam had been associate dean for research and graduate studies at the veterinary college since 1999. He has also served as director of the Center for Computational Epidemiology, Bioinformatics, and Risk Analysis; director of Biomedical Information Management Systems; and professor of Epidemiology and Biomedical Informatics.

Dr. Habtemariam is president of the World Association of Veterinary Educators. He was elected a member of the National Academies of Practice and is an honorary member of the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society.

Dr. Habtemariam has been a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization. He and his research team have helped coordinate more than a dozen international workshops in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States to train scientists in risk analysis.

The new dean received his certification in risk analysis from the Department of Agriculture's Graduate School. He holds a master's degree in preventive veterinary medicine and a doctorate in epidemiology, both from the University of California-Davis. He earned his veterinary degree from Colorado State University in 1970, after attending college in his native Ethiopia.