Francis B. Nyamnjoh holds a PhD (1990), from the University of Leicester, UK. He joined the University of Cape Town in August 2009 as Professor of Social Anthropology from the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal, where he served as Head of Publications from July 2003 to July 2009.

He has taught sociology, anthropology and communication studies at universities in Cameroon, Botswana and South Africa. In October 2012 he received a University of Cape Town Excellence Award for “Exceptional Contribution as a Professor in the Faculty of Humanities”, an award renewed in 2017 and again in 2022. In September 2021, he was elected as a fellow by the College of Fellows of the University of Cape Town, in recognition of his research. He is recipient of the “ASU African Hero 2013” annual award by the African Students Union, Ohio University, USA; of the 2014 Eko Prize for African Literature; and of the ASAUK 2018 Fage & Oliver Prize for the best monograph for his book #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa.

He is: a B1 rated Professor and Researcher by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF); a Fellow of the Cameroon Academy of Science since August 2011; a fellow of the African Academy of Science since December 2014; a fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa since 2016; and chairs the Academic Advisory Board of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) since 2019.