Professor Puleng LenkaBula is a South African with roots in South Africa and Lesotho. A trained feminist ethicist with a doctorate in Social Ethics (2006/7), she has published widely in the intersections of ethics, economy and ecology, especially on the thematic areas of feminist social theory, ecological economic justice, and ubuntu, and has supervised students in these areas. In January 2021, she was appointed Principal and Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Unisa – the first female to hold this position in the 148 years of the university's existence, and its third VC since the advent of South Africa's democratisation. Prior to this appointment she worked at the University of the Free State (UFS) as Deputy VC: Institutional Change, Student Affairs and Engaged Scholarship, and at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg as Dean of Student Affairs, and member of the VC's office. From 1999–2010 she served as a lecturer, senior lecturer and associate professor at Unisa. She was Visiting Professor at Emmanuel College of the University of Toronto, where she worked on the interface of intellectual property rights on life forms and associated ethical questions. She is a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians and Ethicists, and the Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa, where she also served as a member of the executive committee for seven years. She served as Vice-President of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) during the consolidation of South Africa's democratisation. LenkaBula continues to partner with scholars at other universities, which include visiting scholarships in Botswana, Ghana, Vasteras (Sweden), Columbia University Center for African Studies and Emmanuel College of the University of Toronto.
