Ilya Ulyanov was born in Astrakhan, to Nikolai Vasilievich Ulyanov (1770—1838) and Anna Alekseyevna Smirnova.
Ulyanov graduated from Kazan University's Department of Physics and Mathematics in 1854. In 1850s and 1860s, he was a mathematics and physics teacher at Penza Institute for the Dvoryane, and later at a gymnasium and a school for women in Nizhny Novgorod. Around that time, he married Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. While in Penza, Ulyanov conducted meteorological observations, on the basis of which he would write a couple of scientific works called On the Benefits of Meteorological Observations and Some Conclusions on Their Use for Penza (О пользе метеорологических наблюдений и некоторые выводы из них для Пензы) and On Thunderstorm and Lightning rods (О грозе и громоотводах).