New dean chosen
Eniola-Adefeso aims to bring UIC engineering into the national, international spotlight
After more than 17 years, the College of Engineering is ushering in new leadership with a champion for healthcare, engineering, and equity. Professor Omolola “Lola” Eniola-Adefeso has been appointed as its new dean, and she is the first woman to be named dean of the College of Engineering.
“UIC’s a very unique campus and one of those rare universities that is living up to the ideal and vision for which we set up institutions of higher learning. It is an entity that offers an elevator, so to speak, to help lift people up toward victory,” she said. “Looking at the composition of the student body – often the first generation to attend college – these are the very individuals we want to lift up. For me, it's very exciting to be at the helm of a college of engineering that is doing that.”
Karen J. Colley, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at UIC, said Eniola-Adefeso’s appointment will be transformative for the College of Engineering, UIC, and the University of Illinois System. “Dr. Eniola-Adefeso understands our students,” Colley said.
“She immigrated from Nigeria when she was 16 and started out in community college before transferring to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she was part of the famous Meyerhoff Program for underrepresented students.”
Colley noted that Eniola-Adefeso has been a leader in efforts to bring greater diversity to the field of engineering throughout her career. She has worked to increase the ranks of diverse faculty present in STEM higher education through the NEXTPROF program she co-created at Michigan, which has led to more than 50% of participants continuing their academic career path and 30% securing faculty positions.
Eniola-Adefeso is passionate about representation because her career has benefitted from it.
“I remember clearly how my faculty advisor at UMBC – a woman – told me during a low moment in my undergraduate studies that I could absolutely do this,” Eniola-Adefeso said. “Later, during my graduate career, she said to me, ‘You should consider being a faculty member. I did not blink. Why? I knew I could be a faculty member because I’d seen someone that looks like me be a faculty member.”
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Eniola-Adefeso is a highly respected chemical and biomedical engineer with more than 25 years of professional experience. She has secured millions of dollars in federal research funding — including an NSF CAREER Award — and published more than 70 peer-reviewed publications. Her entrepreneurial success has resulted in three patent filings, with one patent licensed to a biotech company.
She received a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Maryland in 1999 before attending the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her master’s in 2000 and her PhD in 2004, both in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
She was a postdoctoral scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston before transitioning to a faculty position at the University of Michigan in 2006. At Michigan, she was a member of the chemical engineering department and served as the associate dean for graduate and professional education. Eniola-Adefeso also earned the titles of Vennema Endowed Professor of Chemical Engineering and University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor during her time at Michigan.
In addition, Eniola-Adefeso serves as the president of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and a member of the National Academies Study Committee: Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. This September, she will also be inducted as an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the highest honors within the scientific community.
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She is on an upward trajectory in her scientific and leadership career that can only benefit and bring recognition to UIC
| Provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at UIC
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In addition to serving as the dean, Eniola-Adefeso has an appointment in biomedical engineering. Her research is geared toward understanding blood flow and the cellular and particle-based interactions that can happen in blood flow. She is particularly focused on developing targeted nanoparticle-based therapeutics for treating human disease.
“One of the areas of research that we spent some time thinking about in my lab is sickle cell disease. The UIC College of Medicine has a massive research operation in that space, and immediately, there are already connections that we’re making with clinicians,” she said. “There is a ton of opportunity with the work that they are doing in the cancer center that would be a great synergy for some of the work that we’re doing to try to manipulate the immune system using nanotechnology.”
She also has her sights set on UIC’s College of Pharmacy, who are looking at ways to package new drugs that they’re discovering.
“I’m thinking about how we package drugs, so there is opportunity and synergy there as well,” she said.
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As dean, Eniola-Adefeso wants to leverage UIC’s prime location in the heart of Chicago to access the city’s resources and industry ecosystem and build stronger relationships. She is confident prospective students worldwide will want to join the college after seeing its tremendous impact and the partnerships developed.
“Let’s position UIC engineering so people can leverage its beauty to enhance their lives and for top-notch faculty to engage in cutting-edge research, creating innovative engineering solutions that change and transform lives for the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and quite frankly, nationally and internationally,” Eniola-Adefeso said.
In addition to UIC’s location, the dean is excited about UIC’s diversity and sees it as an enormous benefit not found at other Research One Institutions.
She plans to continue supporting and nurturing this ecosystem and elevating it so students, faculty, and staff can benefit from the talent, creativity, and innovation of this diverse environment.
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“I deeply believe diversity brings innovation, and you cannot have one without the other. When you have people that come from different backgrounds, they bring that diverse lens that allows you to tackle and look at problems from all of these different angles,” she said. “The more lenses you have, the better and clearer you’ll see all the nuances of the problem, which will get you to the best solution. Supporting what we already have that is unique to our campus is going to be my focus.”
The dean wants to ensure that UIC is training students to be the best and most diverse engineers, so UIC is a destination for domestic and international companies when they want to hire engineers.
“I am passionate about engineering education. I will be that dean who is constantly pushing to support UIC faculty, students, and staff to be the best engineers and do the best engineering research possible to come out of the college. They will see no other person more passionate about supporting them in that way.”
Eniola-Adefeso is succeeding Professor Peter Nelson, who led the college for more than 17 years. He will return to computer science as a faculty member and director of the UIC AI Laboratory he founded in 1991.
“After seventeen years of continuous growth, I am delighted to be passing the torch of leadership to a successor with the outstanding qualifications of Dr. Eniola-Adefeso. It has been wonderful working with Lola during the transition and seeing the unique perspective, new ideas, and high energy she has that can continue to increase UIC Engineering’s impact in education and research,” Nelson said.
Eniola-Adefeso looks at her time as UIC dean as an opportunity to transform rather than fix.
“UIC Engineering has grown tremendously with great leadership from Pete Nelson. The flame is lit, so to speak. Now, let’s apply all these other lenses to fan the flame and see what transformation can happen,” Eniola-Adefeso said.