Rate My Professor Nnenna Ike

Dr. Nnenna Ike is a lecturer in the aviation program at Adelaide University’s School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Information Technology. An aviation professional, her work spans aviation and airport planning, strategic urban development, and international aviation research. She is recognised for her evidence-based approach to advancing safety, efficiency, and sustainability in the global aviation sector. Dr. Ike has held key planning roles at Brisbane Airport and Blacktown City Council in Sydney, contributing to major infrastructure and policy initiatives, including evaluating community and operational impacts of the Western Sydney Airport (Nancy-Bird Walton) development by assessing noise, traffic, population growth, and other factors. She taught and mentored emerging aviation professionals for more than five years in the Aviation Program at Griffith University. Additionally, she completed a prestigious two-year international postdoctoral fellowship at Lund University in Sweden, contributing to an EU-funded research project on automation and emerging technologies shaping resilience and safety in Air Traffic Management systems.

Dr. Ike’s research interests include advanced air mobility, air traffic control, emerging aviation technologies and automation, and human factors in aviation, focusing on system safety, human performance, and operational resilience. She recently secured funding for research with partners across 32 airports in Australia and Thailand addressing airport sustainability and community engagement in large-scale infrastructure projects. Together with female aviation colleagues, she completed a landmark transnational study on gender equity, inclusivity, attraction, and retention of women in aviation academia across Australia and New Zealand, highlighting persistent gender imbalances. Her teaching includes Airport Management, Human Factors in Aviation, Aviation Safety Fundamentals, Safety and Risk Management for Aviation Professionals, and Human Performance & Limitations in Aviation. Key publications comprise “Identifying Individual Factors Which Impact Student Learning in a Desktop Flight Training Simulator” (Ryley et al., 2025), “Natural language processing for aviation safety: extracting knowledge from publicly-available loss of separation reports” (Buselli et al., 2022), “Tertiary students' housing priorities: Finding home away from home” (Ike et al., 2020), and “Social capital in community organizing for land protection and food security” (Cheevapattananuwong et al., 2020).