Global Senior Director, Microsoft Research

Ade is a Global Senior Director at Microsoft Research (MSR), where he leads a team that collaborates with world-class researchers to uncover the next breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and advanced computing. His work sits at the intersection of science, technology, business, and society—driving innovations that have real-world impact. He has a strong passion for scientific discovery, particularly in the applications of AI in small molecule drug discovery, protein design, inorganic material discovery, Density Functional Theory, numerical weather prediction, nuclear fusion, multi-modal foundational models, and robot learning in embodied agents.

Ade is also a sought-after public speaker and cultural commentator on AI. He holds professional affiliations with several leading organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ACM-SIGR, the IEEE Cognitive Robotics Committee (CoRO), ASTM F45 Committee on Legged Robotics and Autonomous Systems, ASTM F38 Committee on Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the Neuro-Symbolic AI Interest Group at the Alan Turing Institute, and the SAE-EUROCAE Joint Committee on AI in Aerospace. He also serves as a scientific advisor and organizer for the Embodied AI Workshop at CVPR (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition).

Before joining Microsoft Research, Ade held senior leadership roles across Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise divisions, overseeing multi-billion-dollar high-growth businesses. He also spent several years at Oracle, where he led major industry initiatives and drove significant platform adoption and revenue growth.

Ade holds a B.Sc. in Computer Information Science from Morgan State University, an M.Sc. in Technology Management from Columbia University and completed Deep Reinforcement Learning training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at Yale University and is currently enrolled in the Global Executive MBA program at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.