RIT professor helps to tackle energy access in rural Africa

Nathan Williams, assistant professor at the Golisano Institute of Sustainability, has long been fascinated with solving complex problems.

Williams’ passion was in mathematics and physics, but his wanderlust landed him with the Peace Corps, traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in West Africa. While teaching math and science in a remote, unelectrified village, Williams learned a valuable lesson in energy access. His curiosity pushed him to create his own sustainable solutions. He tinkered with solar panels and batteries and built a solar home system, eventually helping friends in the community with their own systems. The experience provided the lightbulb that powers his academic journey.

“Those two years were a transformative experience, not just with electricity, but with life in general,” Williams said. “It got me interested in energy access and the importance of improving people’s quality of life. I started to ask myself, ‘How can I use my technical background and skills to address these sticky development problems?’”

Williams’ collaborative work tackles the subject of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, the United Nations established Sustainable Development Goal 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. This goal, Williams believes, is especially vital for advancing quality of life in energy-limited regions. According to research from the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the United Nations Statistics Division, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, 685 million people across the world live without electricity, with a majority located in the region that Williams and his colleagues focus on.

“Professor Williams is committed to and excels in conducting research that explores sustainability issues in developing nations with a particular focus on African nations such as Kenya and Rwanda,” said Amit Batabyal, interim head of the Department of Sustainability and the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics in the College of Liberal Arts. “This work aligns well and is consistent with the sustainability department’s mission to provide a broad-based, systems perspective on sustainability challenges both in and outside the United States.”

Williams is not one to take full credit for his work. His work integrates a collaborative approach, recruiting students from regions who bring invaluable local perspectives. These collaborations contribute to innovative solutions, blending data science with hands-on fieldwork to bridge information gaps in energy research across the continent.

“I specifically recruit students from the region because they bring a perspective that I don’t have,” Williams said. “I see sort of a privilege that I have as a professor is helping them to get a voice and have a platform in this space, because sometimes the communities that are struggling with access challenges aren’t sufficiently represented in the solutions.”

In 2022, Williams secured a Rockefeller Foundation grant to use data science and remote sensing to understand the role of infrastructure access in rural development. These funds helped alumni like Lefu Maqelepo ‘24 (sustainability), who explored the economic and operational challenges facing mini-grid systems. Maqelepo’s work supported a subsidy program pitch for mini grids in Sierra Leone. He currently works as an analyst at Massachusetts-based ISO New England, an independent, not-for-profit regional transmission organization.

One of the projects that alumnus Fhazhil Wamalwa ’24 (sustainability) embarked upon focused on integrated planning for energy access and irrigation farming, a synergistic approach to fostering development in the most food-insecure region in the world. Wamalwa, who is from Kenya and was one of Williams’ first students, experienced the challenges of limited electricity access and food insecurity caused by several factors.

“I deeply value the relevance of Dr. Williams’ work,” said Wamalwa, who is an assistant professor in electrical engineering at San Francisco State University. “His research addresses these critical issues and offers practical solutions aligned with the achievement of multiple sustainable development goals. It exemplifies the impactful and transformative work being done at RIT, positioning the university as a key contributor to addressing pressing global challenges in developing world.”

Sustainability Ph.D. student Tunmise Raji examined how electrifying agriculture, especially for irrigation and processing, holds potential for economic upliftment in rural areas, where agriculture remains a primary occupation. Raji notes that Williams consistently pushed him to consider not just the technical solutions, but also its real-world impact.

“Our work in Professor Williams’ labs stand out for its focus on not only the supply side of the energy access challenges in Africa but also the demand side, with the goal of empowering local communities to use electricity productively,” Raji said. “For example, his approach of combining satellite imagery analysis with on-the-ground fieldwork fundamentally bridges the data access gaps that researchers face when focusing on Africa. I believe these make our work particularly valuable for advancing universal access to electricity in the region."

Williams views his work not as a standalone achievement but as part of a larger, collaborative effort to address significant global challenges in energy and sustainability.

“I don’t want to put too much on myself that I’m somehow saving the world,” Williams said. “I have a small role to play, and I love what I do. It certainly is a privilege to be a part of that larger community that’s tackling important problems.”