Emmanuel Ojeifo is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame. He works within the broader field of political theology in Africa, with research interests spanning land, ecological, and agrarian questions, ecomartyrdom, black political holiness, and integral development in Africa.
Emmanuel’s dissertation research examines the question of land violence and identity in Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of Christian theological social ethics. The goal of the study is to cast a fresh imagination of land that foregrounds human flourishing and engenders new possibilities of a nonviolent African future. Emmanuel serves as the graduate coordinator of the Kellogg Integral Ecology Working Group at Notre Dame. He is also on the Research Committee of the Just Transformations to Sustainability (JTS) Initiative of the University of Notre Dame. In addition to the Wilsey Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, Emmanuel has held a LASER Fellowship (AY 2023-24), a Freedom and Prosperity Fellowship of the U.S. Atlantic Council (2023-25), and holds the Lamin Sanneh Fellowship of the Overseas Mission Study Center (OMSC) of Princeton Theological Seminary (2024-26).
Prior to coming to Notre Dame in 2021, Emmanuel earned graduate degrees at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; and the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja in Nigeria.