Another example of growing international cooperation at HFT Stuttgart: Dr Yetay Berhanu has successfully defended his doctoral thesis. He was supervised by HFT Stuttgart and Jimma University in Ethiopia: he was awarded a doctorate for his research on the topic of ‘Spatial Road Safety Analysis, Machine Learning for Accident Prediction, and Safe Routing in Accident- and Congestion-Prone Road Networks: The Case of Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia’.
In his dissertation Dr Berhanu investigated how safe route recommendations can be created using a machine learning method - the random forest model - as well as historical accident data and network analyses.
At HFT Stuttgart's Centre of Excellence for Geodesy and Geoinformatics, he worked on processing and analysing the data collected in Addis Ababa. As part of his dissertation, he carried out various analyses of his extensive data set with around 65,000 registered accidents. In particular, by integrating classic statistical spatial hotspot analyses with modern machine learning approaches, he was able to gain new insights into the accident situation in Addis Ababa, a metropolis of 5 million people. The use of ArcGIS software, which was made available to him via the HFT Stuttgart as part of the Esri Germany university programme, was particularly helpful.
International co-operation
Dr Berhanu's dissertation was cooperatively supervised by Prof Dr Dietrich Schröder (Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences) and Prof Dr Esayas Alemayehu (Jimma University). This collaboration gave Dr Berhanu the opportunity to further develop his research project in an international context and gain new scientific perspectives.
The defence of the doctoral thesis took place in a hybrid format: This meant that the scientific exchange also functioned across great distances, as professors from Jimma University in Ethiopia were virtually connected to the defence of the doctoral thesis at HFT Stuttgart.
HFT Stuttgart would like to thank Jimma University for being an excellent partner in this co-operative doctorate. With the concept of Community-Based Education, it aims to address local social problems in the key research areas of food security and livelihoods, health and healthcare, environment and climate change, relevance and quality of education, social justice and democracy. Particularly noteworthy is the interdisciplinary approach, which makes it possible to combine research projects with the practical application of technology and innovations for the benefit of the local community and to implement the transfer of research results and solutions into society.
Thanks for DAAD funding and congratulations
Dr Berhanu received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for three semesters as part of the "Engineering Education Capacity Building Programme (EECBP) Home Grown" to strengthen engineering education. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and political unrest in Ethiopia, Jimma University was temporarily closed, which is why Dr Berhanu spent several semesters at HFT Stuttgart at his own expense. He emphasised that the successful completion of his dissertation would not have been possible without the support of the DAAD and HFT Stuttgart.
HFT Stuttgart warmly congratulates Dr Berhanu on his success. His research makes a valuable contribution to improving road safety. The university is looking forward to further joint projects and wishes him every success for his academic future.
Author: Isabella Fischer
Doctorate at the HFT Stuttgart - co-operative or independent
Dr Berhanu's cooperative doctorate is an excellent example of how synergies can be used for one's own work through collaboration with a university of applied sciences and a university. It was also previously the only opportunity to supervise doctoral students at HFT Stuttgart. With the founding of the Baden-Württemberg 2022 doctoral association, HFT Stuttgart and 23 other HAWs in Baden-Württemberg have been granted the right to award doctorates independently. 16 professors from different research areas are given the opportunity to supervise doctoral students at HFT Stuttgart as first supervisors through their membership of the doctoral association.