Dr Toyin Ajao is a Research Associate, alumna, and former alumni coordinator of the Africa Leadership Centre (ALC). She engages the world as a public scholar, storyteller, feminist activist, holistic transformation researcher, and practitioner. She is the Founder of iAfrika Centre for Holistic Research and Praxis; focusing on personal and interpersonal (healing) transformation through evidence-based multidisciplinary empirical findings and praxes. She received an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London and BSc Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pretoria, where she was previously a lecturer of International Relations.). She is a former doctoral grantee of NextGen-SSRC, Andrew Melon Foundation and the ALC.
Ajao has over a decade of practical work experiences having worked with and consulted for several change-making women’s rights and women in ICT organizations such as Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, Communicating for Change, Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, and Association for Progressive Communication and Urgent Action Fund-Africa. She is an internationally award-winning blogger and a former co-editor of KIND’s ‘free2run’ (women in politics) blog. A panelist at the 55th UN Commission on the Women Status, New York, where she advocated for the need to document women’s participation in peacemaking in Africa.
Reputable platforms such as Routledge, Matatu, Kujenga Amani, ASA, Sahara Reporters and Pambazuka have published her work. She has served as a peer-reviewer to several academic journals including the Journal of African Media Studies and IPSS. Her research foci comprise cultures of peace, posthuman security, conflict transformation, new media, visionary feminism, healing justice, gender and sexual rights. She is a board member of Vision Spring Initiatives, Connecting the Dots Feminist Institute, and Equality Triangle Initiatives.