Godwin Obi
PhD Student, MAE
Godwin is a Doctoral Candidate at Princeton’s ZERO Lab, where his research explores possible futures and innovative pathways to national-scale commercialization and deployment of emerging clean-firm technologies across North America, the Arabian Gulf, and emerging African markets.
He focuses on Oxy-Combustion Systems (OCS)—particularly those powered by natural gas and supercritical CO₂ (sCO₂)—and their potential to drive clean, affordable economic growth, industrialization, and development. In addition, he examines the role of the state in advancing this transition through national and industrial policy. His work aims to generate insights for guiding innovation, investment, research, energy policy, and planning decisions. Prior to Princeton, Godwin gained diverse experience across the energy, entrepreneurship, and logistics sectors. He interned at Egbin Power Plc, West Africa’s largest power generation company; co-founded a startup through the Rockefeller Foundation-Acumen social enterprise accelerator; completed a graduate internship at Procter & Gamble; and worked at Bisedge Limited, a startup advancing electric mobility across Africa and the Middle East. He earned his B.Eng. (summa cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nigeria, where he was a Shell Scholar. He is also a recipient of the 2020 Rockefeller Foundation-Acumen Student Social Innovation Challenge Award and was named among Africa’s Top 100 Brightest Young Minds in 2021, among others. At Princeton, he is an Eli & Britt Harari Fellow and a GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellow—the signature award by Princeton’s GradFUTURES.