Professor Melanie Walker’s research focuses on human development, understood as the expansion of people’s capabilities in and through higher education with more equality and justice. Her work considers dis/advantage, wellbeing and agency, addressing the complex challenges of inequalities, including: student access, higher education experiences, and graduate outcomes and transitions into work; socially just pedagogies; and public-good professional education.
Walker has a PhD from the University of Cape Town and a BA, BA honours and MA (cum laude) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since 2012 she has been senior research professor at the University of the Free State, and SARChI Chair in Higher Education and Human Development. She was previously professor of higher education at the University of Nottingham, UK.
She is foundation director of the Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development, which supports early career researcher capacity building through a programme of research, master classes, researcher training, international visitors and seminars. She currently supervises/co-supervises 10 PhD students at the UFS. She was previously director of research training on a large EU-funded project, as well as director of research and director of postgraduate training in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK.
Walker has held numerous editorial positions, including on the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Power and Education, Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning and Professional Development in Education. She regularly reviews for various accredited journals and leading book publishers. She is frequently invited to present keynotes and papers on her work at conferences around the world, most recently in Australia, Spain, Greece, the UK and South Africa. She is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College, UK.
Walker has published nine books, over 100 chapters and peer-reviewed articles, edited 22 journal issues, and has around 2 500 citations.
She has been the recipient of numerous competitive research grants. She is a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association and its current vice-president, a fellow of ASSAF, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham.