“A few years ago, I was in a job I didn’t like. It led me to spend a lot of time reflecting, and I became more spiritual. In that process, I realized I had to take responsibility for my life. When you are a ‘good student’ (like I was as a @princeton undergrad) you’re rewarded by your teacher, grade, awards. The external motivation propels you, but it left me without my own sense of direction. In that old job, I realized it’s not a boss or anyone else who will elevate or direct me. When I’m depending solely on others, I feel powerless. I have to go for what I want, for myself. Now I’m trying to do that as a Ph.D. student in STEP at @princetonspia. After jobs in strategy and data engineering — both of which weren’t for me — I started to figure out my passions. What interests me most is the process of modeling, or turning real life into a model. While I was in graduate school at @cornelluniversity, I enjoyed optimization: how you maximize/minimize a function under a set of constraints. More specifically: I’m interested in power systems and energy planning in my home country of #Nigeria. There are 200 million people there, many of whom have hardly any power at all, and that is a really large barrier to development. There’s also a lack of political will to remove that barrier. I thought, ‘How do you put that into a model? How do you model that the government doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to do?’ I discussed this idea with professors Michael Oppenheimer and Jesse Jenkins at #tigersthrive19, and the idea for my Ph.D. dissertation was born. I don’t have a policy background, but I have always suspected it might suit me, so that’s why @princetonspia attracted me. I saw this as a place where I could be most flexible. Now this is just me, my show. I’ve never had this kind of opportunity to move myself forward. I’m scared but excited.” — Oladoyin Phillips ’14, Ph.D. candidate, STEP.