Wekesa is the Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa which he helped establish along with others in March 2018. He is secretary to the U.S. Business in Africa Awards and interim chairman of the African Centres for the Study of the U.S. which brings together scholars from eleven African universities. He is secretary to the Governing Board of the U.S. Business in Africa Awards (USBAA), an industry-academia-policy partnership inaugurated in February 2020. Since 2015, Wekesa has been a senior lecturer at the Wits Centre for Journalism where he teaches and supervises international communications. He holds bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Communication University of China. His area of teaching, research and public engagement is international communication, the intersection of media and international affairs. His publication record includes conceptualization and editorship of seminal special issue on “digital diplomacy in Africa” published by the South African Journal of International Affairs (2021); a book chapter on African public diplomacy in the respected Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (2020) and editorship of a first-of-kind volume entitled “Africa’s Policy Towards the U.S.: The Biden Era” (2021) – a sequel is the works. His latest editorship, “China versus the U.S.: The Battle for Digital Supremacy in Africa” came out in July 2022. His single authored book, “China’s Footprint in East Africa: Optimism, Pessimism, Pragmatism” is due for publication by Palgrave Macmillan (expected late 2022). He has been published extensively on Africa-China and Africa-U.S. relations in peer reviewed journals, books, newspapers, and blogs. Among other projects he is currently leading is “U.S.-Africa Cities” conference and publication project. He sits on the boards of various journals and academic networks.
Contact: bob.wekesa@wits.ac.za.