Prof. Afework served University of Gondar in different capacities from May 1994 to September 2014, including as vice president for Research and Community Services. He has been transferred to Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology, School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences of Addis Ababa University since October 2014 and serving as Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.

Prof. Afework was trained as a biologist and an applied microbiologist at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and earned BSc and MSc degrees in 1993 and 2001, respectively. He holds PhD in Biomedical Sciences from The University of Tokushima, Japan in 2007. He also conducted conducted postdoctoral studies at University of Colorado Denver,  USA from 2008 to 2010.

Prof. Afework’s broader research involvements include the epidemiology, immunology and molecular biology of infectious diseases with emphasis on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, intestinal parasitoses,sexually transmitted infections and other bacterial infections, etc, as demonstrative in over 140 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals. He has been serving as anonymous reviewer for large number of scientific journals publishing articles in the areas of infectious diseases, microbiology, immunology, nutrition, public health, health services, etc. Prof. Afework is a member of several professional bodies including Ethiopian Public Health Laboratory Association, Ethiopian Society of Tropical and Infectious Diseases, Ethiopian Medical Association, Biological society of Ethiopia, Ethiopian Space Science Society, American Society of Microbiology, and Japanese Society for Bacteriology. He is a Life Member of Ethiopian Public Health Association, Ethiopian Red Cross Society, and Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia.