Prof Melanie Walker is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town, where she completed her PhD after teaching at disadvantaged secondary schools for a number of years. She joined the University of the Free State in February 2012 as Senior Research Professor in Higher Education and Human Development. In 2013 she was appointed as NRF Chair in Higher Education and Human Development. She is an Al-rated NRF researcher.

Before joining the UFS, she was Professor of Higher Education at the University of Nottingham in the UK where she was Director of the PhD in Higher Education, Director of Postgraduate Students, and a Director of Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She retains her link to Nottingham as an Honorary Professor. Prof Walker is also Past-President of the Human Development and Capability Association, lifetime fellow of the HDCA and a fellow of ASSAF. From July 2025 she has been a research affiliate of the Laudato Si Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford. Her current research focuses on the contribution of universities and of lifelong learning to a reparative integral ecology.

She has delivered numerous international keynotes and seminars, written more than 200 book chapters and refereed journal articles, and authored or edited 16 books, including highly regarded volumes on higher education and global human development and on doctoral education. Her two most recent books focus on Reparative futures and transformative learning spaces, and  Low-Income Students, and  Higher Education in South Africa:  Opportunities, obstacles and outcomes.   She has supervised 36 PhD students to completion. She has been the recipient of numerous external grants including from the British Council and the ESRC.

Her extensive editorial experience has included editing roles on Teaching in Higher Education, Educational Action Research, and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. 

Prof Melanie Walker publications to 2025