Ilesanmi Adesida

Ilesanmi Adesida (born 1949, in Ifon, Ondo State, Nigeria) is a Nigerian American physicist of Yoruba descent. He has been the provost at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, from September 2016.

Adesida is also the Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; he retired from Illinois in 2016. In May 2012, the board of trustees of the University of Illinois selected Adesida to be the next vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost of the Urbana campus, a position he held from August 15, 2012 to August 31, 2015. Other positions that Adesida held at Illinois included dean of the college of engineering, director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, professor of materials science and engineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering, professor of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and professor of the Coordinated Science Laboratory. In 2006, Adesida was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the nanometer-scale processing of semiconductor structures and applications in high performance electronic and optoelectronic devices. Adesida was also a member of the board of Fluor Corporation from 2007 to 2011. the American Vacuum Society, and the Optical Society of America.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, the Materials Research Society, and the Society for Engineering Education.

In 1994, he received the Oakley-Kunde Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education from Illinois, and in 1996 he won the Best Paper Award at the Micro- and Nano-Engineering Conference. In 2011, he was awarded the Electrons Devices Society Distinguished Service Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In 2016, he won the Functional Materials John Bardeen Award from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society.

At Illinois, he was appointed a University Scholar and an Associate Member of the Center for Advanced Study. He is a former president of the IEEE Electron Device Society, a winner of the EMSA Presidential Student Award; an IEEE Electron Device Society Distinguished Lecturer (1997–2002); a member of the Bohmische Physical Society (1988); and the holder of an IBM Postdoctoral Fellowship (1979–1981).

In 2013, he was selected as a Great Immigrant Honoree by the Carnegie Foundation of America.

Books Science and Technology in Africa,

Patents

US Patent 5880482 – Low dark current photodetector