Illustrious Ewhorlu

Research Assistant (He/Him)

Illustrious Ewhorlu is a Research Assistant at the Applied Economics Clinic. Prior to joining AEC, he worked as an Energy & Utilities Decarbonization Fellow at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he worked on developing a comprehensive decarbonization plan specifically tailored for the UNH Energy and Utilities department.

Before that, in 2022, he won the prestigious QS World Merit Social Responsibility Scholarship for his strong level of environmental awareness and sense of social responsibility and was a Leaders Fellow at Student Energy, a global youth-led organization empowering the next generation of leaders who are accelerating the transition to a sustainable energy future. During his fellowship, he identified significant pathways to achieving a sustainable energy transition in Nigeria and examined the processes that have enabled Bhutan to achieve carbon neutrality to gain insights into policy frameworks and best practices that could be adapted to Nigeria's unique context.

Illustrious is currently an MS Candidate in Sustainability at Tufts University, where I focus on global sustainable development based on the concept of Just Sustainablilities, (Agyeman et al., 2003). Prior to attending Tufts University, he studied power engineering with a minor in Russian at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in Moscow, Russia, from 2015 to 2020. His interests and experiences span renewables, the environment, GIS, sustainable international development, human geography, climate change, and community engagement.

His career goal is to establish himself as a world-class scholar-practitioner, working at the intersection of academia and policy in international development, where he aims to cause “good trouble” and apply his knowledge to make meaningful contributions to community health and well-being, particularly in regions grappling with environmental and socioeconomic crises. He is fluent in English and Russian and has an intermediate understanding of Ukrainian.