Dr. Tafesse received his PhD from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He did his postdoctoral studies at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (MIT) in the lab of Hidde Ploegh where he was an NWO Rubicon fellow, and worked on host-pathogen interaction of viruses, fungi and bacterial toxins. Before joining OHSU, Dr. Tafesse was an Instructor in Medicine, Assistant in Immunology at the Ragon Institute of MGH, Harvard and MIT where he established his research program in Mtb and HIV.