Chairs, Professorships, and Scholars
Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering
Donald Biggar Willett (1897-1981) attended the U of I from 1916 to 1922, but left the university just a few hours short of earning a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. During the 1930s, Willett moved to Los Angeles and opened a tax accounting business. He died in 1981 at age 83. His wife, Elizabeth Marie Henning Willett, was an avid investor who accumulated a fortune. She knew that her husband admired the U of I College of Engineering for its thriftiness and honesty, so in her will she left a gift to the college for research in memory of her husband. Mrs. Willett died in 1993 at age 91. The purpose of the Willett Professorships is to increase the distinction of the College and its departments by recognizing and stimulating intellectual leadership and outstanding research.
Ilesanmi Adesida
Ilesanmi Adesida
Ilesanmi Adesida is an expert in the processing of semiconductors and other materials at the nanometer-scale level and in ultra-high-speed heterostructure field-effect transistors—the sort of transistors used in cell-phones, fiber communications, deep-space communications, and other applications. His contributions have provided insights into the limits of advanced lithography and other nanofabrication techniques.
Adesida is also the director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory and director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, which brings together campus faculty from diverse disciplines to address research issues and to catalyze new centers in nanotechnology. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1987 after being the head of the Electrical Engineering Department at the Tafawa Balewa University in Nigeria. Prior to that, he worked in the School of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University.
He and his students continue to work in the areas of nanoelectronics and high-speed optoelectronic devices and circuits. Recent work has focused on the development of devices and circuits in the key materials such as indium phosphide and gallium nitride utilized in high-performance wireless, optical fiber communications, and high temperature applications. He has published over 250 refereed journal papers, over 180 conference papers and presentations, and many book chapters.
Adesida is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1996, he won the Best Paper Award at the Micro- and Nano-Engineering Conference. At Illinois, he received the Oakley-Kunde Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, and he has been appointed a University Scholar and an Associate Member of the Center for Advanced Study. He is currently the president-elect of the IEEE Electron Device Society. He earned his bachelor’s (1974), master’s (1975), and doctoral (1979) degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Excerpted from: Ingenuity - "Faculty News"