in mathematics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1949.

Lefschetz recognized Adem's mathematical talent, and sent him as a doctoral student to Princeton University where he graduated in 1952.

[3] His dissertation, Iterations of the squaring operations in algebraic topology, was written under the supervision of Norman Steenrod and introduced what are now called the Adem relations.

[4] His brother is geophysicist Julián Adem, who obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University in 1953.

[7] In 1956, Adem started the second series of the Boletín de la Sociedad Matemática Mexicana.