Adesida named interim-dean designate of College of Engineering

Ilesanmi Adesida has been named interim-dean designate of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pending approval of the U. of I. Board of Trustees.

“Professor Adesida brings a record of outstanding scientific and engineering accomplishment, administrative experience and understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the college, a great capacity for working effectively with colleagues, and a genuine enthusiasm for engaging with us all in assuring that the college moves vigorously forward in the months ahead,” said Richard Herman, the interim chancellor of the Urbana campus. “He has our full confidence, and we are delighted that he has agreed to take on this critical leadership position.”

David Daniel, the dean of the college, will remain in his position through May, before assuming his new duties as the president of the University of Texas at Dallas . Adesida, a Willett Professor of Engineering, will then formally assume the interim-dean position. In the meantime, Daniel and Adesida will work together in the interim to assure an orderly transition.

Adesida, the director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, has been at Illinois since 1987. He is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His research group, the Nanoscale Processing and Devices Group, investigates the processing of semiconductors and other materials at the nanometer scale level and applies these techniques to the realization of ultra-high speed optoelectronic devices and circuits.

After earning his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, Adesida, was an IBM Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Research and Resource Facility for Submicron Structures (NRRFSS). Later, he served as a visiting assistant professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and headed the electrical engineering department at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria, prior to joining the University of Illinois faculty. He also is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and of the American Vacuum Society. He is the current president-elect of the IEEE Electron Device Society.

According to Acting Provost Jesse Delia, a committee is being formed and will soon begin a national search for permanent leadership of the college.