Dr. Ivan Nathanael Lukanda is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Makerere University. He earned a PhD in Journalism from Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 2018, and previously completed a Master of Arts in Journalism and Communication through a sandwich programme between Makerere University and Örebro University in Sweden. Early in his career, he was selected as a UNESCO visiting fellow at Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013, and more recently supported as a fellow of the African Humanities Programme under the American Academy of Learned Societies for 2022–2023. He also contributes as an early-career researcher on the Africa Urbanities Project, sponsored by the Andrew Mellon Foundation for the 2019–2024 period.
Beyond academia, Dr. Lukanda is an active media and communications consultant and has practical experience as a freelance journalist with Sunday Vision and Uganda Radio Network. His research and teaching interests center on science and technology communication, including topics such as genetically modified organisms, environment and climate change, the dynamics between scientists and media, women in science, journalists’ safety, freedom of expression, and media and cultural identity. He teaches on a range of subjects, including research methods, writing for communication, communication for development, media and culture, and media ethics, and has supervised students at both undergraduate and graduate levelsHis scholarly output includes publications in outlets such as Springer, ANU Press, the Journal of Science Communication, and the Journal of African Cultural Studies.
Depatriarchalising the Media Coverage of Science in Uganda Book Chapter
In: pp. 225-242, 2025, ISBN: 9781003413820.
In: Tembo, Nick Mdika (Ed.): Trauma in the Age of Social Media in Sub Saharan Africa: Narrative and Representation, pp. 119-137, Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 2025, ISBN: 978-3-031-95508-2.
Depatriarchalising the Media Coverage of Science in Uganda: Recovering Women's Voices Book Section
In: Routledge Handbook of Contemporary African Women, pp. 225–242, Routledge, 2024.
New Challenges Old Tactics: How Ugandan Newsrooms Combat Fake News Book Section
In: Digitisation, AI and Algorithms in African Journalism and Media Contexts, pp. 53–67, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2023.
Media Framing of COVID-19 in the Hybrid Democracies of Uganda and Tanzania. Journal Article
In: Taiwan Journal of Democracy, vol. 17, no. 2, 2021.