Tsion Yohannes Waka joins the UGHE team as a faculty and the Chair of the Center for Gender Equity in February 2020. Tsion is responsible for mainstreaming gender in the academic, research, and community development projects of UGHE. Before this role, Tsion was engaged with UGHE as the chief organizer for Women Leaders in Global Health Conference of 2019. 

Prior to joining University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, Tsion was engaged in production of a Preliminary Gender Profile of Ethiopia and a National Assessment on Accessibility and Availability of Rehabilitative and Reintegration Services for Survivors of Violence for UN Women Ethiopia, among various researches.  She has also been working for 16 years as a gender expert and consultant with a number of international and local non-governmental and government organizations through participating in community engagement projects, conducting researches, evaluations, gender analysis, audit and impact assessments in relation to various thematic areas such as reproductive health, child rights and other development issues. Her roles also included giving trainings on gender-based violence, gender equality and gender mainstreaming to schools, university students, community members and technical staff in international and local NGOs. Some of the organizations she has previously worked with include Addis Ababa University, World Bank, UNWomen Ethiopia, Fredrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), Women in Self-Employment (WISE), Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED), Menschen Fuer Menschen, Mary Joy Aid Through Development, USAID- ATEP, Oxfam Canada and Novib, British Council etc.