Dr. Elizabeth Rasekoala is the President of African Gong: The Pan-African Network for the Popularization of Science & Technology and Science Communication, which aims to advance the Public Learning and Understanding of Science (PLUS), scientific outreach and scientific literacy on the African continent. She is the Editor of the influential new Book "Race and Sociocultural Inclusion in Science Communication: Innovation, Decolonisation, and Transformation”.

Elizabeth, with a professional background in Chemical Engineering, has researched, presented and written widely on public innovation and transformative development through advancing diversity, sociocultural inclusion and race and gender equality issues in science communication and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and skills development. She has provided extensive advisory and consultancy expertise to various governments and agencies both in the Global North and South, and to multilateral international organisations over the past 20 years, including the European Commission, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, UNESCO, the African Union Commission and the African Development Bank.

Elizabeth has been internationally recognised for her innovative, dynamic advocacy, and transformative practice, with various awards, the most recent being the International NAT AWARD for Science Communication—conferred by the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona, in 2019.

Leveraging Afrocentricity & Sociocultural Inclusion for enhanced Impact

The critical developmental challenges across the African continent make it an imperative for African scientists to undertake emancipative and transformational approaches to Science Communication and Public Engagement as a routine, in their practices and narratives. These Afrocentric and socioculturally inclusive contexts and framing of science engagement become even more vital when scenarios are challenging – such as during public health epidemics and pandemics. African Gong advocates for a ‘societal literacy’ approach to public engagement in Africa — a two-way approach that highlights the role of scientists.   Furthermore, for African scientists and researchers, Afrocentric science engagement with society can also create and enable a more critically engaged public, necessary for navigating science advice in a ‘post-normal science’ era, with inherent challenges of building trust.

These imperatives, diverse contexts and their implications for race and sociocultural inclusion in science communication, globally, are amongst the pressing issues that have been interrogated and elaborated on, by 30 globally diverse science communication practitioners and academics, in the new book, "Race and Sociocultural Inclusion in Science Communication: Innovation, Decolonisation, and Transformation.” Dr. Elizabeth Rasekoala, President of African Gong: The Pan-African Network for the Popularization of Science & Technology and Science Communication, is the Editor of this influential collection and will be sharing key learnings and innovative Afrocentric understandings from this book.

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