The Head of Department School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Francis Onditi, PhD is a conflictologist with specialization in geography of conflict and war studies. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in 2015 from Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya. His Doctoral Thesis was rated the thesis of the Year. He holds a Master of Arts in International development from the University of Nairobi and Bachelor’s Degree (geography) from same university. He began his career as a teaching/research assistant at IDS, and later on, in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Nairobi. He is also trained in Haifa, Israel on various aspects of social innovations and strategic management.
Dr. Onditi, is the recipient of the 2019 AISA Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Pretoria, South Africa. He has received other research Excellence Awards from the Association of African Universities (AAU), the Institute of French Research in Africa (IFRA) and the European Union (C.R.E.A.T.I.N.G Project). His research and publication acumen have earned him opportunity to establish functional scholarly networks in Western Europe, South East Asia, Japan, North America, Latin America and sub-Sharan Africa; he is in collaboration with teams from these globalities on various research projects leading to books and/or journal publications.
Dr. Onditi’s current pre-professorial research focuses on, “exploring the analytical conception of the closeness centrality and its implications for a new theory of ‘invisibility’ for enhancing the understanding of the process of conflict extractives with the aim of providing thereby an explanation of the intrinsic character of interaction among human beings, communities and states as a process of diffusion of power, conflict reversals, and peace interlocutors.”
Previously, he has served in various capacities, with international organizations, including United Nations in Gigiri.