DR. EPHREM TEKLE(OCTOBER5, 1956 –NOVEMBER 11, 2013)
Dr. Ephrem was born on October 5, 1956 to his parents the late Ato Tekle Ukbayohannes Malu and Weizero Yihdega Ghebreselassie Woldetensae in the town of Kombolcha, North-Central Ethiopia. He started his elementary schooling at the Collegio La Salle in Asmara, Eritrea and completed middle school at the Sandford English (Community) School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. For High School he went to the prestigious General Wingate Secondary School in Addis Ababa.
In the mid 1970s, after the start of the Revolution, Ephrem left Ethiopia for Djibouti and continued to France where he made several life-long friends. In 1979, he immigrated to the United States settling in the Washington Metropolitan area.The diligent student that he was, he was a recipient of theMinority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program at the University of District of Columbia (UDC) for four years, which enabled him to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry (Summa Cum Laude, 4.0 GPA).
He continued with his graduate education, first at Georgetown University and then transferred to the University of Texas at Arlington earning a Master of Science degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in 1989. Ephrem’s Ph.D. was in Physical Chemistry. Ephrem then joined the staff at National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Biochemistry and Biophysics Center in Bethesda, Maryland where he was tenured in 1997 and worked there until his untimely passing.
He was loved and respected by his colleagues.On July 1, 2000, Dr. Ephrem joined Ms. Elizabeth Negussie in Holy Matrimony and on October 21, 2001 God blessed them with a precious gift, their son Nathan. By his devotion to Nathan, Ephrem was an exemplary father to many.Ephrem was truly a polymath person. Though a physical chemist by training, he was also an Engineer and an avid programmer. In addition to these intellectual achievements, Ephrem was also a wonderful human being. No adjectives are sufficient enough to describe him. He was a
loving and devoted son, husband, father and brother, a dedicated and diligent scientist,a humble and modest servant of his Eritrean-American community,as well as a kind and patient friend and an outstanding mentor.
He was a man of integrity and honor who stood firmly to his principles. He was also an avid photographer, blessed with the patience to wait until he gets the right perspective, good lighting and the right moment.Besides devoting his time to his family and especially to Nathan, Ephrem’s dream for retirement was to start a Mathematics and Science Academy in Eritrea to inspire future scientists and mathematicians. He believed scientists are made early on and they should be groomed starting at the middle school. Alas, the Creator’s plan for him turned out to be different and he suddenly left us on November 11, 2013. Ephrem is preceded in death by his fatherAto Tekle in 1995. He is leaving behind his mother Yihdega, his wife Elizabeth and his only son Nathan. He is also survived by his sisters Tsehay,Almaz, Maaza, and Ghebriela and his brothers Samuel, Yonas, and Tedros
and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.Ephrem was uniformly loved and respected by people who crossed paths with him family, social friends and professional colleagues. He will be dearly missed by all as well as his world wide Dehai-Eritrea Online community whom he selflessly served for nearly two decades.
The void Dr. Ephrem leaves behind is hard to fill but his gentle and humble spirit will live on forever. So long beloved Ephrem rest in peace.
November 19, 2013 We meet here today to honor, pay tribute, express our love
and admiration, and bid farewell to Ephrem.In doing so, we hope we can comfort his family who have been deeply hurt by his untimely death.Words are simply not enough to describe the inextricable wisdom and grace of a gentle giant like Ephrem. He lived a quiet and simple life;he gave so much to his family, his community, his friends, and his work and asked for very little in return.He was exceptionally unique, humble, modest, kind, and selfless person. There is a saying in Tigrigna (Ephrem’s mother tongue) that roughly translates: a name is a clue. His parents, inspired by the Almighty, named their first son, Ephrem, which in the Hebrew language (also in Tigrigna and Amharic) means fruitful or productive. That was exactly what Ephrem was: a doubly triply productive and hard working person.
Ephrem was not only an excellent scientist, but also an engineer,
an excellent web developer, and system administrator, a community volunteer, an aspiring photographer, and a big dreamer.
Frankly many of us have no sufficient adjectives to describe Ephrem. Ephrem the stu
dent and Ephrem the scientist was dedicated and devoted seeker of truth. He talked, walked and lived science. The pursuit of knowledge for Ephrem was a continuous endeavor and proved that to the last breathe of his life.
Ephrem was not a man of small ideas; though he lived and worked in the small-scale world of molecules he also loved the bird’s eye view and the big picture. His passion for quality education was also unmatched. He believed, if we wanted to make scientists out of children, we need to inspire them before their high school years. As such his retirement dream was to start a science and mathematics center in Eritrea. Ephrem was also a dedicated servant to his community and people.He worked without saying much and by
source http://dehai.org/