Zuriel Oduwole '22

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Zuriel Oduwole '22, an advocate for peace, education and gender equality, has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Los Angeles native was just 19 years old when she earned her bachelor of science degree in cognitive science. Now 22, she is in doctoral degree program at USC focusing on global risk and international affairs.

In September 2022, Oduwole received the UN Secretary General Ban KiMoon leadership award for her development work and peace initiatives the previous 10 years. She received the Forbes Woman Global Achievers award in March 2024 and the CARE Award followed in October of that year.

At the age of 13, Oduwole met with President David Granger of Guyana in New York, speaking to him about the consequences that would result for girls and women if he went to war with Venezuela over the Essequibo Oil territory. She learned about these consequences from the First Lady of Sierra Leone, a country still suffering from the scars of its nearly decade-old civil war of the '90s.

Then came the invitation from an Arab leader, during a conflict with Qatar, to visit his country and meet him personally, following on from her initiative with Mozambique's President Felipe Nyusi, which helped end girl marriage in that Southern African country, in 2019.

In addition to her work as an advocate, Oduwole has taught a basic filmmaking class to unemployed older girls and young women in Africa — Ghana, Cote D’ Ivoire, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Her work and story have been featured on many major global media networks, including BBC, CNBC, TRT London, CGTN, Bloomberg TV and CNN, as well as in print titles Forbes Magazine, ELLE Magazine and digitally on Yahoo! news.