Mesele Araya is a quantitative research assistant with Young Lives in Ethiopia. He studied Human Capital Formation and Labor Relations at the University of Bergamo, Italy and Economics at Addis Ababa University. He also attended research training courses at the African Economic Research Consortium (Kenya), University of Copenhagen and Central European University. Before joining Young Lives he worked as a Lecturer in theDepartment of Economics at the University of Gondar and as a Research Fellow for ADAPT Labor Studies in Italy.

His research interests lie in the areas of human capital, child poverty and inequality, school-to-work transitions of young people, youth labour market, skills formation and economics of education.