Ibrahim Eltayeb holds a First Class Honours bachelor in mathematics from the University of London (Queen Mary College) and a PhD from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He joined the University of Khartoum as a lecture in 1972. He was promoted through the ranks and became a Professor in 1980. He joined SQU in 1986. He gained administrative and academic policies experience at both Khartoum and SQU. At Khartoum, he was a head of department and Dean. He sat the university research committee, the graduate studies committee, the Senate advisory sub-committee, the Senate and the University. At SQU he was head of department for ten years (1988-98), member of curriculum and academic policies committee for ten years and chaired the SQU committee for establishing key performance Indicators. As head of department at SQU he initiated and supervised the establishment, for the first time in the Sultanate, of the bachelor degrees in mathematics, statistics and computer science in 1992 and Master degrees in applied mathematics, statistics and pure mathematics in 1997. His contribution has been acknowledged internationally. He was awarded the international prize of mathematics of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 1995 and that the Organization of Islamic countries in 2007. He was elected Fellow the Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1988, TWAS in 1996 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2012.