A professor of the University of Pristina, he played a pivotal role in the early restoration of universitarian activity in Kosovo after the mass dismissals of academicians and ban on Albanian-language education by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević[b] in the early 1990s.
Born on July 20, 1940, in the village of Zhur near Prizren, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Ademaj studied mathematical sciences in the University of Belgrade.
In the 1970s he began his career as assistant professor and later a docent at the faculty of mathematical sciences of the University of Pristina, while in 1987 he received full tenure.
Ademaj was the first to initiate postgraduate degree courses at the faculty of mathematical sciences of Pristina.
Eshref Ademaj, head of the Independent Union of University Teaching Staff, co-founded and led the Initiative Council to organise the restoration universitarian system.