Professor Pamela Maseko is the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Nelson Mandela University. She has worked for over 25 years at various higher education institutions in South Africa, and as a research Fellow both locally and abroad. She has extensive experience in South Africa’s higher education sector, having served as a founding Board member of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS); Council member of the Council for Higher Education (CHE); and as member of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). She also served on the Ministerial Oversight Committee on Transformation in the South African Public Universities. Prof Maseko received her Bachelor and Honours degrees from the University of the Western Cape and her Master’s, PhD and a PG Dip HE from Rhodes University. She is a social scientist specialising in historical sociolinguistics. Her areas of research include language policy and planning, language and learning in higher education, and historiography of (South) African literature.

Prof Maseko has held tenure at the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, University of the Western Cape, and at North-West University as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. She is also the current President of the South African Humanities Deans’ Association (SAHUDA) and holds Fellowships at universities both locally and internationally. A recipient of numerous grants and awards, Prof Maseko has been instrumental in sourcing funding from various national and international funders to support research in universities where she has held tenure. She is the author and editor of five academic books and authored various book chapters and journal articles. She is also the co-editor of a UKZN Press Literature Series that publishes works on literary traditions of the 19th century early African thinkers from the Eastern Cape.

Prof Pamela Maseko serves as the Chairperson of the Research Development Committee and a member of the Remuneration & HR Committee.