Prof Mpine Makoe is the Executive Dean of the College of Education and the National Research Foundation (NRF) rated research professor in Open Distance eLearning (ODeL) at the University of South Africa. She was a Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) chair in Open Education Practices/ Resources and currently the board member of the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE), its OER ambassador and a founding member of the Global Doctoral Consortium. Mpine is actively involved in open and distance education associations nationally and internationally as a director of African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) for more than 15 years, a chairperson of Distance Education Association of Southern Africa (DEASA) (2018-2020) and the president of the National Association of Distance Education and Open Learning in South Africa (NADEOSA) (2023-2017) and the ICT Task Force member of the Association for the Development of Education Task Force (2012-2018). She is also a founding member of the University Futures Network.

Mpine is a sought-after scholar and has given keynote addresses in numerous international conferences, published extensively in ODeL related fields and supervised doctoral students. She served as a higher education technical leader and higher education expert on the UNESCO’s Futures of Higher Education for the World Higher Education Conference 2022. She facilitated the development of strategies and policies in ODeL as well as assisted universities in different countries to design open digital learning materials in universities in Africa. She has worked on numerous commissioned research projects for CoL, the British Council, the Council for Higher Education. She also serves as a council member for the Botswana Open University. She holds a PhD and MSc in Educational Technology from the Open University, United Kingdom; an MA in Journalism (cum laude) from the University of Michigan and BA in Communication and English (cum laude) from Hope College in Michigan as well as a diploma in journalism from Africa Literature Centre in Zambia.