News / Environment
Legacy creates volcanic scholarship
The work of a Bristol university graduate who died in Africa has been remembered by his friends who have set up a scholarship in his name to research the volcanoes of Ethiopia.
Back in 1978 Michael Dreyfus died in a crash near the Great Rift Valley.
Now his friends have partly funded a PhD place for Ethiopian student Tesfaye Temtime Tessema, who will study volcanology at Bristol University for three years.
Bristol University and Addis Ababa University want to develop a long-range volcanic eruption forecast for the Ethiopian Rift. The heavily populated area has a number of active volcanoes but there is very little research about them.
Mr Tessema, who recently completed his Masters in Addis Ababa, will focus his research on studying the landscape using specialised techniques as part of the on-going five-year £3.7m RiftVolc study, which both universities are involved with.
“People are used to living with the risk of earthquakes in Ethiopia but it isn’t a top priority for the government, so research like this is really important for improving people’s understanding and assessing the threat they pose,” Mr Tessema said.
The fund was partly donated by Mr Dreyfus’s friends, George Elliston, and Skip and Cathy McMullan.
George Elliston said: “Mike was a quick-witted and charismatic man, whom we all loved.
“He died close to the Rift Valley, and here we are in another part of the Rift, looking to the future.
“So, it’s a nice way of keeping his memory alive in our hearts, and establishing some continuity between successive Bristol generations.”
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