FABIans said farewell to Dr Mesfin Gossa at a gathering of colleagues and friends in the FABI courtyard on 18 July. Mesfin leaves FABI to take up a full-time appointment as a Senior scientist in forest health (protection) at the ICFR. He joined FABI in 2013 to start his PhD, which he completed in November 2016, under the primary supervision of Prof. Brett Hurley – Mesfin being his first postgraduate student. His PhD project “Ecology and diversity of introduced Pissodes (Coleoptera: Curculionidea) in South Africa” investigated the identity and genetic diversity of a weevil species introduced to South Africa in 1942.

Prof. Brett Hurley said that Mesfin had contributed substantially while at FABI, furthering important connections and collaborations between the Institute and researchers and forestry companies on the African continent. He was actively involved in the activities and promotion of FISNA including organising and hosting several webinars. His first postdoctoral fellowship saw him embark on an extensive project to identify Eucalyptus pests in 15 African countries. Mesfin then completed a three year SANBI-funded postdoctoral Fellowship and more recently was a member of an ACIAR-funded project to identify key pests and diseases of Acacia, Eucalytus and Moringa plantations in Ethiopia.

FABI Director, Prof. Bernard Slippers thanked Mesfin for his many years of dedication to FABI. He also praised him for being a pleasure to work with and for always being reliable and willing to step up to new challenges, and producing quality research. FABI founding Director, Prof. Mike Wingfield, also thanked Mesfin for his commitment to FABI and said that Mesfin was adaptable and able to seize opportunities and his research work and his new post would provide more opportunities for both Mesfin and FABI.

Mesfin thanked everyone for their support and friendship during his time at FABI and said the Institute was an enabling environment with state of the art facilities where he learnt a lot. FABI wishes Mesfin all the best on this exciting new chapter in his career and we look forward to continuing collaborating with him in research projects in the future.