Makerere University is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922, and the oldest currently active university in East Africa. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of nine colleges and one school offering programmes for about 36,000 undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates. These colleges include College of Natural Sciences (CONAS), College of Health Sciences (CHS), College of Engineering Art & Design (CEDAT), College of Agriculture and Environmental Studies (CAES), College Of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS), College of Humanities & Social Sciences (CHUSS), College of Computing and Information Sciences (COCIS), College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources & Bio-security (COVAB), College of Education and External Studies (CEES) and Makerere University Business School (MUBS). In addition, Makerere has onother campus in Eastern Uganda Jinja City.
Joe Oloka-Onyango is a Ugandan lawyer and academic. He is a Professor of Law at Makerere University School of Law where he has also formerly been Dean and Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC). He is married to Prof Sylvia Tamale, also a lawyer, academic and activist. They have two sons; Kwame Sobukwe Ayepa and Samora Okech Sanga.
Dorothy Okello is a Ugandan electrical engineer, and professor known for founding the Women of Uganda Network or WOUGNET. In 2016, she became the first female president of the Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers
Sylvia Rosila Tamale is a Ugandan academic, and human rights activist in Uganda. She was the first woman dean in the law faculty at Makerere University, Uganda.
Susan Nalugwa Kiguli is a Ugandan poet and literary scholar. She is an associate professor of literature at Makerere University. Kiguli has been an advocate for creative writing in Africa, including service as a founding member of FEMRITE, a judge for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and an advisory board member for the African Writers Trust. As a poet, Kiguli is best known for her 1998 collection The African Saga, as a scholar, and for her work on oral poetry and performance.
Makerere University Library, established in 1949, is the oldest academic library in Uganda. In addition to its primary role as an academic library, it also serves as the national reference library and the legal depository of all works published in Uganda. It has been a depository for the United Nations since 1956.
Francis Gervase Omaswa, MBChB, MMed, FRCS (Edin), FCS (ECSA), is a Ugandan cardiovascular surgeon, academic and administrator. He was installed as the chancellor of Soroti University, one of the nine public universities in Uganda at that time, in August 2022.
Sarah Kiguli, MBChB, MMed (Pediatrics), MHPE, is a Ugandan pediatrician, academic, and medical researcher. She is a professor and head of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the Makerere University School of Medicine, a component of the Makerere University College of Health Sciences.
Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza is a Ugandan lawyer, academic and judge, who has served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Uganda, since 2015.
Lydia Mugambe, is a Ugandan lawyer who served as judge at the High Court of Uganda between May 2013 and September 2020. She was appointed to the High Court by President Yoweri Museveni, on 3 May 2013. Lady Justice Mugambe Ssali was subsequently appointed by President Museveni as Inspector General of Government on 18 September 2020
Sarah Ssali, is a Ugandan social scientist, researcher, academic and academic administrator, who is an associate professor and dean of the School of Gender Studies at Makerere University, Uganda's oldest and largest public university.
Namubiru Rose Kirumira. is a Ugandan sculptor and senior lecturer at the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts (MTSIFA), Department of Visual Arts, College of Engineering Design Art and Technology, at Makerere University. She specializes in human form, sculpted wood, clay and concrete monumental sculptures. Her works include the statue King Ronald Mwenda Mutebi where she assisted the sculptor and professor Francis Nnaggenda at Bulange Mengo, and Family at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.
Dominica or Dominic Dipio is a Ugandan religious sister, a filmmaker, author and a professor of Literature and Film at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. As a sister, she belongs to the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church, MSMMC, a Ugandan-founded religious congregation in Roman Catholic Diocese of Lira in Northern Uganda. In November 2019 she was appointed Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope Francis.
Thelma Awori is a Ugandan professor, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and feminist. She was born on March 25, 1943, in Monrovia, Liberia and came to Uganda in 1965. She is a former Uganda People's Congress diehard, who defected to the Movement. She is an individual African feminist who believes in justice for women and the validity of women’s perspectives. She sadly found an extremely high prevalence of internalized oppression due to religion and socialization.
Florence Akiiki Asiimwe is a Ugandan politician, author, and lecturer. On January 14, 2021, she was elected as the representative of parliament for Masindi District in the 11th Parliament of Uganda. She is affiliated to the National Resistance Movement party which has been the ruling party since 1986.
Makerere University School of Women and Gender Studies (MSWGS) is one of the schools that comprise the Makerere University College of Humanities and Social Sciences, a constituent college of Makerere University, Uganda's oldest and largest public university. Established in 1991, the mission is to provide intellectual leadership for mainstreaming gender in all aspects of economic, political and social – cultural development.
Marilyn ('Lyn') Ossome is an academic, specialising in feminist political theory and feminist political economics. She is currently Senior Research Associate of at the University of Johannesburg and a member of the advisory board for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, amongst other accolades. She is an editorial board member of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, and in 2021, she co-edited the volume Labour Questions in the Global South. She serves on the executive committee for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). She is the author of Gender, Ethnicity and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy: States of Violence.
Deborah Hope Kasente is a Ugandan writer and academic who focusses on women's rights. She is the co-founder of the School of Women and Gender Studies at Makerere University.
Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo is a Ugandan professor of Women and Gender Studies, advocate for gender equality, social transformation and respect for women's rights. She is also a social anthropologist, feminist and social norms researcher and a lecturer at Makerere University. She and Marjorie Keniston McIntosh co-authored a book called Women, Work and Domestic Virtue in Uganda 1900-2003 which won the Aidoo-Snyder Prize.
Amon Ashaba Mwiine is a Ugandan gender activist and lecturer at the School of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University. He went to Stellenbosch University, South Africa where he attained his PhD (Sociology). He is a trainer with Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) on aspects of Masculinities and Agriculture and Gender Transformative Approaches.
