Dr. Esther Adhiambo Obonyo

Dr. Obonyo provides visionary leadership and strategic oversight for IES Abroad’s STEM Abroad initiatives. With a 20-year career spanning academia, research, and international collaborations, Esther brings a wealth of experience to this position, which will be instrumental in advancing IES Abroad’s mission to offer transformative study abroad experiences.
 

Prior to joining IES Abroad, Esther served as a professor at Penn State University’s School of Engineering Design and Innovation with a joint hire in Architectural Engineering. She was also the Director of the Global Building Network (GBN), a prestigious partnership between Penn State and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Under her leadership, GBN fostered over 35 global partnerships to advance research and education on sustainable and resilient infrastructure. 
 

Her academic and professional work is distinguished by its global impact. She led a Penn State consortium funded by the Belmont Forum to enhance infrastructure resiliency and public health in disaster-prone communities. Her innovative work spans academia, industry, and policy, including roles as a Jefferson Science Fellow and senior policy adviser for USAID, as well as her engineering contributions to significant projects such as the emergency retrofit of the U.S. consulate in Nairobi, Kenya.
  

Esther's research, funded by multiple National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, has focused on the intersection of technology, sustainability, and social impact. Her dedication to gender equity and diversity in STEM is reflected in her creation of international educational experiences for more than 2,100 students, and her dissemination of over 160 research publications.
  

She also holds a bachelor’s in Building Economics from the University of Nairobi, a master's in Architectural Technology from the University of Nottingham, and a doctorate in Civil and Building Engineering from Loughborough University.