Pawlos Kassu Abebe (PhD) is Deaf and teaches at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. In addition to teaching and research, he also coordinates a project funded by Kentalis International focused on research in Deafblindness and development of the Deafblind in Ethiopia.
He has been into disability rights activism for more than two decades. He has served as the President of his country’s federation of persons with disabilities. He has also served as a board member of the East African Federation of the Disabled (EAFOD) and African Disability Forum (ADF), an umbrella body of all national federations in Africa. He is currently coordinating the African Research Initiative (ARI), an initiative of DbI aimed at encouraging research in Deafblindness in the African context.