James D. Oliver received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado in Sociology and Education, and his Ph.D from the University of Missouri-Columbia in General Education Administration. He has held leadership positions at Colorado State University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Lincoln University-Jefferson City, Missouri, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

With more than four decades of working at Land Grant Universities, Dr. Oliver has secured millions of dollars in grants and contracts during his career and has written numerous articles on Cooperative Extension and Outreach. In addition, he established one of the largest STEM outreach initiatives for the Cooperative Extension Service while serving as Regional Director for Illinois Extension.

As an Associate Chancellor for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Oliver provided leadership and administrative support to the Chancellor. He was later designated as Senior Advisor to the President within the University of Illinois multi-campus system level. He was the first recipient of the USDA-Extension National Diversity Award which is given to someone with extraordinary leadership in inclusion and diversity in programming. Dr. Oliver is a highly sought-after guest speaker and lecturer on Leadership and Diversity at Land Grant Universities across the nation.