Abiy originally hails from Bishoftu. He finished a PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and following that he held a joint research fellow position at Las Cumbres Observatory Global Network (LCOGT in US) and the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).

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His research interest lies in the general realm of galaxies, but recently developed interest in theoretical cosmology and had formed a very successful collaboration with Amare Abebe who is a fellow member of the Astro-bus team. Abiy has a strong interest in the application of  machine learning in Astronomy. he is currently working at Boeing US and teaches astronomy part time. He loves African music.