The Middle Awash research project was formed by the late Professor J. Desmond Clark in 1981.  Leadership of the project rests with four coordinating scientists who take responsibility for research design, logistics, funding, methodology, and general project goals.

The late Professor J. Desmond Clark was the pre-eminent African prehistorian of the 20th century.  He conducted archaeological research throughout Africa, including during the Second World War when he served in the British Army in Ethiopia.  Clark moved from his work at Gadeb in the Ethiopian Highlands and started the Middle Awash research project in 1981.  He is widely acknowledged to have fostered the training of indigenous African scholars from many countries, including Ethiopia.  He authored many books, papers, and other scholarly works in African archaeology.

Professor Tim White has done field paleontology in Africa since 1974.  His expertise is Plio-Pleistocene suids and hominids, but his interests and publications include archaeology and taphonomy.  He has worked at and/or visited most major Plio-Pleistocene hominid localities in Africa.  He has substantial experience both in the laboratory and conducting fieldwork in Ethiopia.  In 1981 White joined Professor J. Desmond Clark in the Middle Awash research.  White took responsibility for the paleontological aspects of the research, and has led the paleontology team in the Middle Awash since 1990.  He has written books on human osteology and bone modification.

Doctor Giday WoldeGabriel has done geology in Ethiopia since 1976, first at Addis Ababa University, then as a graduate student working on Ethiopian Rift evolution, and now as a researcher with the Middle Awash research project in charge of geological studies.  His areas of specialization include field geology, tectonics, volcanology, tephrochronology, and tephrochemical analysis which is a primary correlative tool used in the construction of stratigraphic frameworks for the prehistoric artifacts and fossils of the Middle Awash.  He is the author of numerous publications on Ethiopian geology and has worked in the Middle Awash since 1992. See also http://www.ees1.lanl.gov/programs/gidayarch.html

Doctor Berhane Asfaw has done paleoanthropological research in Ethiopia since the first Middle Awash season in 1981.  His areas of specialization include paleolithic archaeology and hominid paleontology.  He is the former Director of the National Museum of Ethiopia and ran the Paleoanthropology Inventory of Ethiopia project during the 1980s and 1990s.  That project discovered many of the most productive paleoanthropological sites in the country.  Dr. Asfaw is the author of numerous publications on fossil hominids.

Doctor Yonas Beyene has conducted paleolithic archaeology in France and Ethiopia.  He is currently the Head of Anthropology and Archaeology at the Authority for Research and Conservation of the Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa, Dr. Beyene is the chief archaeologist on the Konso and Middle Awash projects.  He is author of numerous publications on sites ranging from the Afar to the Kenyan-Ethiopian border at Fejej, a site that he co-discovered during his time with the Paleoanthropology Inventory of Ethiopia project.