Tassew is Principal Investigator for Young Lives in Ethiopia. He is Professor of Economics at Addis Ababa University. He holds an MSc in Agricultural and Environmental Economics and Policy and a PhD in Economics from Wageningen University, Netherlands, where he has lectured as a visiting Professor in Household and Agricultural Economics since 2000. He previously worked as a researcher at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute, the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, and the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University, USA. He has also worked as an agronomist at the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture.