Dr. Yacob Astatke currently serves as the Assistant Vice President (AVP) for International Affairs at Morgan State University (MSU), a position he has held since July 2017. As the AVP he has played a key role in the implementation of “Morgan’s Global Campus” initiative, with the launch of a new initiatives in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Turkey. In addition, DIA played a crucial role in the signing of a major partnership with the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund) of Nigeria to bring up to 90 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral scholars per year to Morgan starting in the Fall of 2020. As such, the DIA is actively seeking to grow Morgan’s relationships and partnerships with universities and public/private organizations around the world in line with our strategic plan of “Growing the Future, and Leading the World.”

Prior to becoming the AVP for International Affairs, Dr. Astatke was a full-time faculty member in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. School of Engineering for over 23 years, where he rose to the position of Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. For over a decade now, Dr. Astatke has facilitated the donation of hundreds of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) portable laboratory instrumentation boards and has conducted capacity building training workshops for more than 25 universities in Ethiopia and other countries in
Africa and Asia. This work has improved the education of thousands of ECE students in Ethiopia annually. Dr. Astatke is the recipient of several national and international awards, including: the 2013 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) “National Outstanding Teaching Award” and more recently the “2016 Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC)- Airbus Diversity Award” and the “2016 Black Engineer of the Year (BEYA) for College Level Promotion of Education.”