Adewumi named Fellow of Nigerian Academy of Engineering

Michael Adewumi, vice provost for international programs, has been elected as a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering. This is a lifelong designation.

"It is very humbling to be elected a member of this select group of individuals who are considered to be at the top of the engineering profession in Nigeria," said Adewumi. "This is even more so since the Nigerian Academy of Engineering is one of the most active and prestigious academies in sub-Saharan Africa. It also reaffirms our efforts to help build the capacity to train world-class engineers for sub-Saharan Africa using a partnership vehicle between Penn State and select African universities, including quite a few in Nigeria. This recognition is both a personal affirmation and a corporate one for Penn State's strategy for engagement in Nigeria."

As a Fellow, Adewumi will work to uphold the objectives of the academy, including but not limited to advising appropriate bodies on the technical resources that should be applied to meet the changing needs of Nigeria and sponsoring programs aimed at meeting those needs; providing independent and expert advice on matters of national importance pertinent to engineering and technology; interacting with professional bodies, engineering and scientific academies, locally and internationally; and providing a forum for Nigerian engineers to report on research and development activities in engineering.

"One way I can do so is by joining the lecture tour that NAE is planning. Fellows will be campaigning to popularize Science, Engineering and Technology in the rural areas of Nigeria. Thirty-six states of the federation are expected to be covered in this lecture tour," said Adewumi. "I will also work to uphold NAE’s objectives through my work here at Penn State. Currently, I am supporting the building of strategic partnerships between Penn State and select African universities, some of which are in Nigeria."

Adewumi also plans to continue his support of the UNESCO chair in georesources engineering management at the University of Ibadan, which he helped establish in a joint initiative among Penn State, University of Cape Town in South Africa and University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He was named as the inaugural holder of that chair in 2007.

"Forging such cross-cultural academic partnerships will both facilitate the exchange of ideas and advance engineering science, education, practice and technology and related disciplines, achieving both of NAE’s main objectives," he said.

NAE Fellows are elected from a pool of "mature" and distinguished Nigerian engineers. About 50 percent of Fellows are from academia, while the remaining 50 percent are distributed evenly among other practices. Fellow candidates are recognized by their professional peers for significant contributions or accomplishments in professional engineering practice in the private or public economy of Nigeria; pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, engineering knowledge or engineering science; and significant contribution to the art and practice of engineering.

Adewumi is a distinguished scholar and teacher who also has served as director of the Alliance for Earth Sciences, Engineering and Development in Africa (AESEDA). Under his leadership AESEDA secured more than $7 million in external funding to support capacity building, research and outreach engagements in Africa and at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States.

Adewumi joined Penn State's faculty in 1985 following a postdoctoral research fellowship at Chicago's Institute of Gas Technology. He received master's and doctoral degrees in gas engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He has served as a consultant for many major U.S. and multinational oil and gas companies, environmental companies and national governments and their agencies.

The Nigerian Academy of Engineering was established in 1997 after the fashion of similar but older honor organizations in Britain, the United States, Canada, Russia, India and other countries. The main objectives of the academy are the promotion of excellence in engineering theory and practice in Nigeria; dispassionate analysis of domestic and international technical issues and the provision of independent expert advice to the nation on such matters of national importance.

Currently there are 72 academy Fellows, spread across all disciplines in engineering.