Alejandro Adem has been Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director of Mitacs since February 1, 2015. He is concurrently Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia.
As CEO of Mitacs, Professor Adem has overseen an unprecedented expansion of its programs, with the goal of delivering 10,000 research-based internships annually across Canada and abroad by 2020. He worked closely with stakeholders to launch the Mitacs Science Policy Fellows Program in 2016, which places talented academics in science policy roles in both federal and provincial governments. Other important milestones under his leadership include an Indigenous engagement initiative, an innovative entrepreneurship program, and a number of global mobility agreements with partner countries across the world.
Professor Adem is a highly regarded researcher in mathematics. He obtained his PhD at Princeton University and has authored over 70 articles as well as two books, delivered over 360 invited research lectures around the world, and has held postdoctoral or visiting positions at Stanford University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the ETHZurich, the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, the University of Paris VII and XIII, and Princeton University. His distinctions include a Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (1985), a USA National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award (1992), Romnes Faculty Fellowship (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, 1995), a Vilas Associate Award (University of Wisconsin, 2003), Canada Research Chair at UBC (2004), Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2012), Ten Most Influential Hispanic Canadians (2015), the Canadian Mathematical Society’s Jeffery-Williams Prize (2015), and Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences (2017).
Professor Adem serves on a variety of scientific, editorial, and governance boards for the worldwide mathematical sciences community. In particular he is a member of the Advisory Board for the Association for Women in Mathematics and was recently appointed for a four-year term on the International Mathematical Union’s Committee for Women in Mathematics.
