MAE Professor Establishes a Communication Pipeline During Sabbatical at the Leading Technical University in Ethiopia
Onur Bilgen, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, elected to spend his 2024 spring semester sabbatical at the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology’s (AAiT) School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECE), the leading technical institute in the Ethiopian university system. His decision was prompted partly by a desire to immerse himself in a unique cultural experience where he didn’t speak the language.
As a visitor to AAiT SECE, Bilgen worked with and co-advised undergraduate students, participated in collaborative research, helped with laboratory and facility development, and more.
“The electrical engineering students I worked with were quite well-prepared,” he says. He is gratified to have established an ongoing “pipeline of communication” with a number of the faculty and students he worked with at AAiT.
An Ethiopian Co-Advisee Pursues Her SoE PhD
One such undergraduate AAiT student, Bezawit Gebre, arrived on Busch campus on January 16, where she will pursue
her doctoral degree under Bilgen’s direction.
“Working with Professor Bilgen in Ethiopia encouraged me to continue towards a PhD,” she says. “I gained hands-on research experience, especially related to “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs) or drones, and learned how research is carried out and documented. That experience made Rutgers feel like the right place for me to continue growing as a researcher, with a focus on dynamics and control.”
She’s excited to be here, eager to “gain experience that will prepare me for future work and help me gain expertise in the field,” she says.
An Immersive Cultural Experience
“I came to Ethiopia on a voluntary basis, without any expectations,” Bilgen says.
Throughout his sabbatical, he notes, “the faculty and students treated me very kindly.” A particular pleasure was his introduction to Ethiopian cuisine. “It is really tasty, and mostlyvegetarian. Dishes look different, but many are similar in taste to Turkish dishes” where Bilgen is originally from. He enjoyed injera, a bread made with teff, an ancient, iron-rich grain. “It looks like a spongy crepe, and you use it to scoop food. You can even soak up liquidy foods without using a spoon.”
During his sabbatical, in addition to his time at AAiT, Bilgen took more than 20 flights to various universities around the world including Abu Dhabi in the UAE; Istanbul and Ankara in Turkey; and Shanghai and Zhuhai in China before he returned from his sabbatical.
He enjoyed his visits to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Shanghai. “They were new, modern, and extremely clean cities,” he says.
Looking ahead, Bilgen predicts that as a result of his sabbatical experience, many more exchanges between students and faculty of AAiT SECE and Rutgers SoE will develop.
