Born in 1968 in DR Congo, Alfred Ndrabu Buju is a PhD candidate studying Social Transformation in the Institute for Social Transformation at Tangaza University, Nairobi, Kenya. He specializes in security and sustainable peace. He has a master's degree in Sacred Theology with a specialization in Spiritual Theology from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi. He has worked in the Bunia diocese (Democratic Republic of Congo) as spiritual director, rector in a priestly formation house, coordinator of the Justice and Peace Commission, and Director of Caritas-Development. He is a member of the "Bustani ya Mabadiliko" (Garden of Changes), an initiative of the Pole Institute in the Great Lakes Region. He has received training in peacebuilding, governance, justice, social change, and systemic thinking. He has taught indigenous knowledge, decolonial theories, and methodologies. He is a co-founder of several grassroots organizations, including the Justice and Peace Network (Réseau Haki na Amani), the Ituri Platform of Concertation on Natural Resources (Cadre de Concertation de l'Ituri sur les Ressources Naturelles), and Action Research Group for Peace in Ituri (Groupe de Recherche et d'Action pour la Paix en Ituri). His research interests include transformative peacebuilding, indigenous knowledge, and decoloniality.

Nyasha Blessed Bushu is a third-year PhD student in African Studies in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State in South Africa. He is working on a socio-legal history of Zimbabwe in a thesis provisionally titled, Beyond chiefly courts: African grassroots justice practices in Southern Rhodesia c.1890-1937. This project has received Proposal and Research fellowship awards from NextGen. Nyasha holds a BA Honours Degree in Economic History and an MA in African Economic History from the University of Zimbabwe. His research interests are conflict, violence, and justice in colonial and postcolonial Africa. Notably, in 2022, he interfaced with the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission of Zimbabwe on issues related to conflict and justice through his participation in the Spirits of Peace: Recovering Zimbabwe's Heritage of Traditional Reconciliation for Today's Peacemakers Project that the University of Liverpool organised in conjunction with the British Academy. His latest publication is titled "The Zimbabwean Economic Crisis" in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History 2024.

Gorata Chengeta is a Johannesburg-based feminist writer, researcher, and lecturer from Gaborone, Botswana. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her doctoral research project explores the impact of sexual violence on those who experience it, and how these impacts might be shaped by how sexual violence is understood societally. Gorata's experience as an anti-rape activist during her undergraduate studies has served as her motivation to explore the issues of power, sex, and sexual violence through her Master's and doctoral research. As a scholar, she values experiential knowledge and emotion, drawing on these in the pursuit of contributing to a more caring world.

Having previously studied Political Studies and Journalism, Gorata is passionate about political education and storytelling. She has written about sexual violence and feminist activism for various media publications. She is also passionate about the preservation of feminist memory and curates an archive centred on anti-rape activism at South African universities on her blog.

Rumbidzai Chitaukire is a Doctoral candidate and Lisa Maskell Fellow (2023-2025) in the History Department at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She is also a lecturer in the History Heritage and Knowledge Systems Department at the University of Zimbabwe. Ms Chitaukire holds an MA Degree in African Economic History, a BA Honours Degree in Economic History, and a BA Degree, all from the University of Zimbabwe. She is enthusiastic about dialogues concerning economic crises and survival, informal economies, gender, trade and tariff policies, and development in Africa. Her PhD thesis focuses on the experiences of women informal entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe (Harare) as they negotiate survival in a volatile political, economic, and social environment.

Gaaki Kigambo is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape Town, specialising in Media Studies. His doctoral study is titled Mediating Contentious Politics in Hybrid Regimes: Press Coverage of Political Protests in Uganda. It examines how Ugandan print news media interpret and portray political protests in the politically restrictive context of Uganda, where the state restricts public expressions of dissent against it and press coverage of such expressions. The study draws on empirical observations made on the coverage of political protests in Uganda, and extensive knowledge of how the country's news media operate obtained firsthand over a decade and a half of journalistic work with major print news publications in Uganda and East Africa. 

Mr. Gaaki holds a Master of Journalism from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Arts with Education from Makerere University. His research, broadly conceived, focuses on media representations of marginalities.

Elizabeth Nafula Khaemba B.Ed., MPhil., PhD is an author at Kujenga Amani, a digital forum of the African Peacebuilding Network (APN) of the Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC), a research fellow with the Social Sciences Research Council funded by NextGen foundation, and a former fellow with the project' Recalibrating Afrikanistik' funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. She is a part-time lecturer in Linguistics and Communication Studies at Koitaleel University in Eldoret, Kenya, and a high school teacher of English. Her main research areas are: Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis; Language use in the Media, Morpho-syntactic Analysis. She also has a keen interest in conducting Academic Social Research and presenting papers in conferences, seminars, and workshops. 

Stanley Elias Kiswaga is a PhD student at the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University, Uganda. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Education from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies from Airlangga University, Indonesia, and an MPhil in Social Studies from Makerere University. His research interests lie at the intersection of popular culture, nationalism, literature, and the question of the nation in postcolonial Africa. Drawing from political, historical, and cultural perspectives, his work explores how narratives of nation-building are constructed, contested, and performed through artistic forms.  Mr. Kiswaga is currently working on his dissertation project titled "Theatre for Development and the Nation: Rethinking Nation-Building in Post-Socialist Tanzania." The project investigates the dynamics and complexities of mobilizing bottom-up approaches to nation-building, focusing on the roles of both state and non-state actors within the evolving socio-political landscape of "post-socialist Tanzania." Mr. Kiswaga is also a faculty member at the University of Dar es Salaam, where he teaches courses in literature and cultural studies. Looking ahead, he plans to explore further the nexus between political culture and the inventive aesthetic strategies that communities use to negotiate and claim public space in Africa.

Ms. Kgomotso Komane is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She is a research assistant for the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) and a research assistant for the Centre for Mediation in Africa. She was a recipient of the SSRC's 2024 Next Gen Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship. 

Her research focuses on understanding the role of women in peace processes using an intersecting theoretical framework. Using Lesotho as a case study, her doctoral research seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of the role of women in peacebuilding and mediation in Lesotho through an intersecting theoretical framework of decolonial peace, decolonial feminism, African feminism, and indigenous knowledge systems to explore the complex and integrated challenges Basotho women face.

Ongezwa Mbele is an applied theatre practitioner, storyteller, and published poet. She is a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg, and a 2021 Atlantic fellow for Racial Equity. She has been a guest editor for Agenda Journal and Imbiza Journal for African writing. She has co-authored various research journal articles. Her poems have been featured in multiple anthologies. Her professional interest lies in utilizing theatre techniques and storytelling to engage diverse communities on relevant matters. Thus, she has facilitated theatre programmes/projects with young people and incarcerated people in South Africa and Norway, and intercultural workshops for Norwegian and African professional exchange programmes, Norec. Collaboration is at the heart of her interest, and she desires to achieve and practice theatrical interventions with communities deemed in the margins. So, her research practice and service work collaborate dynamically with various communities.

Mr. Aldridge Munyoro is a PhD candidate at Wits University. He is also a social worker, scholar, and social justice advocate.  Munyoro holds a Master of Arts Degree in Development Studies, specialising in Social and Behaviour Change Communication in health, and a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Wits University. Mr. Munyoro has worked as a Lecturer, field instruction coordinator, and academic intern for the Department of Social Work at Wits University for more than four years. He also works as a field practicum supervisor for the South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP). He has also worked as a tutor in the Department of Sociology and as a tutor for critical thinking at the Faculty of Engineering. 

Mr. Munyoro's research interests are in Albinism, Marginalised identities, Intersectionality and Othering, Public health, Mental health, Feminism, Religion, Migration, and inequalities in the education systems. He has also published research outputs in areas such as migration, mental health, historical trauma, social justice, inequalities in Higher Education, and intersectionality. Mr.  Munyoro is also a fellow for the Atlantic Fellowship for Health Equity South Africa (AFHESA) and the Atlantic Institute based at Oxford University. Mr. Munyoro envisions a society where people living on the margins of society can equitably benefit from the social and economic pipeline, enabling them to lead an autonomous livelihood.

Kenechukwu P. Nwachukwu is a PhD Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University, Kampala. She holds an MPhil degree in Social Studies (Political and Historical Studies) from Makerere University; an MSc in Political Science (International Relations) from the University of Ibadan; and a BSc in Political Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her Doctoral Dissertation, titled "State Power and the Production of History: Reading Post-Independence Nigeria's Political History through the IPOB Separatist Agitation," explores the knowledge dimensions of pro-Biafran separatism in Nigeria and the implications of the Nigeria-Biafra war history for political violence. In particular, her research focuses on the Nigeria-Biafra War history within and outside formal education channels, and what role the state and its institutions play in the various mediums the memorialisation of the war history takes. On the successful completion of her PhD, Kenechukwu intends to take up a teaching position in the field of (Nigerian and African) Political History, as well as continue to research and publish relevant pieces arising from research investigations. Through commitment to grounded historical research and collaboration with policymakers, she hopes that her work will inform people-oriented socio-political policies, especially about de-radicalising knowledge frameworks, within Nigeria, Africa, and beyond.