Kopano Ratele is the Director of the South African Medical Research Council Men, Injury and Violence Research Unit and Professor at the University of South Africa where he runs the Transdisciplinary African Psychologies Programme. His research, teaching, social-political activism, and community mobilization has focused on the men and masculinity, African psychology, violence, class, traditions, sexuality, fatherhood and race. 

He is currently a member of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation in South African Universities, convener of the National Research Foundation’s Specialist Committee for Psychology Rating Panel, former president of the Psychological Society of South Africa, and former chairperson of Sonke Gender Justice. His recent research interests are in African-situated decolonising psychology as well as masculinities femininities at home, masculinities at university.

His recent books include There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile (2009, co-authored with Antjie Krog and Nosisi Mpolweni), Liberating Masculinities (2016), Engaging Youth in Activism, Research and Pedagogical Praxis: Transnational and Intersectional Perspectives on Gender, Sex, and Race (2018, co-edited with Jeff Hearn, Tammy Shefer, and Floretta Boonzaier) and The World Looks Like This From Here: Thoughts on African Psychology (2019).