Alejandro Adem is a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia since 2005 and the holder of a Canada Research Chair at UBC.
He was Director of the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences for the period 2008–2015 and since 2015 is the CEO and Scientific Director of Mitacs Canada.
On October 1, 2019, he became President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.