My lived and professional experiences initially shaped my interest in the interactions between Western and Indigenous, state and non-state, and international and domestic actors and systems in environmental law and sustainability—a phenomenon I now theorize as hybridity. I am from Ọ̀yọ́, the historical political capital of the Yorùbá peoples, who are Indigenous to West Africa, and grew up in Ìbàdàn. Working at a law firm in the Niger Delta area from 2010 to 2011, I observed state-industry marginalization of Indigenous Africans in that region. Later at another law firm in Ìbàdàn from 2011 to 2014, my partners and I struggled to get government incentives for Indigenous African businesses, including farmers planting biofuel feedstock such as jatropha, under Nigeria's participation in the Kyoto Protocol. These legal practice experiences heavily influence my research and interest in hybridity and related concepts, especially pluriversality.
Building on this experience and subsequent postgraduate training in environmental and energy law and policy, my current research applies hybridity to climate action, low-carbon energy transition, and sustainable finance and development. I have worked as a researcher for climate governance programmes at UBC and the University of Oxford, and as a Corporate Social Responsibility researcher at a firm in Canada and a corporate and energy law research fellow at the University of Calgary.
As a scholar-practitioner, I serve across academic, government, and community organizations. I am our Centre for Environmental Law and Sustainability Co-Director, regularly work as an official observer and expert within the United Nations, lead and have served as an international Indigenous expert for research projects, and have worked for governments and NGOs. Previously, I co-founded, chaired and coordinated the Liu Institute Network for Africa at UBC.