Debba is the manager of spatial planning and systems at the CSIR. Prior to joining the CSIR in 2008, he was an associate professor in Statistics at the University of South Africa.

He holds a PhD in Statistics from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has been visiting professor in the School of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand since 2015 and has successfully co-supervised several Master’s and is currently co-supervising several doctoral students in statistics.

He has served as president of the South African Statistical Association, and is currently the chairperson of the Institute of Certificated and Chartered Statisticians of South Africa, elected member of the International Statistical Association and editorial board member of the Spatial Statistics Journal published by Elsevier.

He has published around 40 research papers in journals, conference proceedings or book chapters.

Expertise: Statistics; Modelling; Spatial statistics; Space-time models; Design of optimal sampling schemes; Remote sensing