Geophysicist Elias Lewi Teklemariam had excellent prospects of a career in Europe or North America after completing his KAAD-funded doctorate on the topic of "Modelling and inversion of high-precision gravity field data" at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Nevertheless, he returned to Ethiopia in 2005, where he has since been teaching and researching at the Geophysical Observatory of Addis Ababa University and is co-owner of a geodetic survey company.
Elias Lewi is convinced that he can be of most service to his country through his work at the long-established Geophysical Obs ervatory, whose seismographic recordings are in great demand worldwide. Elias Lewi was also the driving force behind the founding of the Institute of Geophysics, Space Science and Astronomy (IGSSA), which incorporates the observatory but significantly expands the corresponding department at the university. Among other things, the first Master's course in geodesy in the entire region was created here, which is offered in cooperation with universities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Elias Lewi is currently Head of the Department of Geomatics, Geodesy and Gravimetry at the IGSSA. Through his connections to Germany and other countries, he has initiated many cooperation projects in the field of geodesy from which the Ethiopian institution benefits, e.g. with the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, the University of Darmstadt and universities in the UK, the USA and France.

Elias Lewi is a member of the Board of Governors of the Ethiopian Catholic University of St Thomas Aquinas. He is also a board member of the Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Foundation, an NGO active in the field of environmental policy. Elias Lewi has been a member of the Ethiopian KAAD partner committee since 2006 and its chairman since 2011.