Beyene earned his PhD in prehistory in 1992 from the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France. He is researcher at the Ethiopian Heritage Authority and affiliated with the French Center for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Beyene is Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, and International Member of the American Academy of Sciences. He is recipient of the Order of Academic Palms from the French Ministry of Education, France. He is corresponding member of the Institut de paléontologie humaine (Paris, France) and of the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA), University of Sandiago, CA, USA. He is actively leading and co-leading paleoanthropological research programmes in Ethiopia. He represented Ethiopia in the World Heritage Committee at UNESCO between 2009 and 2012. He initiated and prepared the nomination file for the Konso Cultural Landscape on UNESCO’s World Heritage list (nominated in 2011). He also led the field research and preparation of the dossier for the nomination of the Gedeo Cultural Landscape for UNESCO’s World Heritage List.