Fireside Chat with Professor Ilesanmi Adesida

November 10, 2025

1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. CAT

A203

Bio: Ilesanmi Adesida is a higher education leader with vast international experience in managing academic, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship enterprises. He has served in universities on three continents – North America, Central Asia and Africa. He is a former provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). During his long career at UIUC, he also served as the dean of the College of Engineering, Director of Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory and as a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is currently Donald Biggar Willet Professor Emeritus in the department.

At UIUC, he was instrumental in creating many innovative programs including the Illinois Engineering First-Year Experience (iEFX), the Applied Research Institute, the Advanced Digital Systems Center (in Singapore), the Siebel Design Center, and the first engineering-based College of Medicine (Carle-Illinois) in the world.

After his service at UIUC, he moved to Kazakhstan in Central Asia to serve as provost and then as provost/acting president of Nazarbayev University (NU) in Astana. During his eight-year service at NU, he oversaw and restructured the entire academic and research programs. His efforts propelled NU (established in 2010) into the top 25 percent of international research-intensive universities as ranked by THE World University Rankings in 2025.

Prior to these services, he worked as a research associate and Visiting Asst. Professor at Cornell University, and as the head of the Electrical Engineering Department at Tafawa Balewa University in Nigeria. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

He is a fellow of many professional societies including IEEE. He has won many awards including the TMS John Bardeen Award for sustained contributions to compound semiconductor processing and leadership in nanofabrication and the EDUCATION Award of the IEEE Electron Devices Society for outstanding contributions to international education, mentoring, and diversity in the field of electron devices. He served as the Chair of the Engineering Advisory Board of the National Science Foundation (USA), a member of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Program Evaluation Panel, the International Expert Panel for the National Research Foundation of Singapore, the InnoHK Scientific Committee in Hong Kong, and the Advisory Committee of the Carnegie Foundation African Diaspora Fellowship Program. He was a co-founder of a technology company and has served on the board of directors of several engineering firms including FLUOR. He is interested in issues of STEM education, higher education, entrepreneurship, and their relevance to the development of nations. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA).

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