Prof.Dr. Liesel Ebersöhn (Director: Centre for the Study of Resilience, Full Professor: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria), a registered educational psychologist and expert on social dimensions of resilience, draws on Sub-Saharan Africa evidence for critical contributions to understanding, from an Afrocentric perspective, resilience-enabling responses that promote collective wellbeing given collective distress. 

Prof Ebersöhn is regarded as a leading scholar and teacher in resilience and resilience promoting interventions in high-risk school settings. Her research is positioned in contexts characteristic of an emerging economy, Global South country in transformation. She combines emancipatory and intervention methodologies to investigate pathways to resilience as human-ecological and cultural adaptive responses to chronic and cumulative adversity. 

Her recognised scientific contributions include a generative theory (relationship-resourced resilience) describing an emic system to counter chronic adversity, as well as ‘flocking’, a word she coined to depict a collectivist indigenous psychology pathway to resilience. This signature work has led to foregrounding collaborative rather than competitive responses to disruption: managing finite resources in sustainable ways that support egalitarian positive education, health and wellbeing outcomes. 

She is the World Education Research Association President Elect. 

Through engagement in global education and poverty think tanks, panels and boards, she is influential globally in education development circles to inform policy, training and practice for sustainable transformation in the Global South (Chair: International Research and Scholarship Committee (Division C, Learning and Instruction, of the American Educational Research Association); member Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Transformative Change Scoping Experts and Management Committee; International Advisory Board Member: Ecuadorian Association for the Advancement of Educational Research (ASEFIE); International Advisory Board Member: African Centre of Excellence for Education Leadership and Teacher Education; South African representative on the Advisory Board of the International Association of Educators.

She is a recipient of numerous scientific association-, national- and institutional awards. Examples of invited keynote and plenary addresses include presentations at the Global Development Network 17th Annual Conference, Lima; American Psychological Association (APA)-symposium on Indigenous Pathways to Resilience, 17th International Conference on Psychology Education; International Multidisciplinary Conference on Educational Research (CIMIE)

She was visiting professor at Yale University, Universität Hamburg and Edith Cowan University.

With students, co-researchers and as single author, Prof Ebersöhn has contributed 94 peer-reviewed articles, numerous book chapters and edited and co-authored books. Her belief in research capacity development is evident in her successfully supervising 97 Masters- and Doctoral students to completion.

Her research focus has had a decided impact on curricula for teacher training in several higher education institutions in South Africa. Her teaching and research outputs attest that higher education can effectively integrate research, teaching and learning as well as community engagement. Her pedagogy aligns with global citizenship and education as key strategies to restructure postcolonial conditions.