Professor Hoppers is a scholar and policy specialist on International Development, education, North-South questions, disarmament, peace, and human security. She is a UNESCO expert in basic education, lifelong learning, information systems and on Science and Society; an expert in disarmament at the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs; an expert to the World Economic Forum on benefit sharing and value addition protocols; and the World Intellectual Property Organisation on traditional knowledge and community intellectual property rights.
She held a South African Research Chair in Development Education at the University of South Africa (2008-2018) a National Chair set up by the Department of Science and Technology. Prior to that, she was a technical adviser on Indigenous Knowledge Systems to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (South Africa) and led the Task Team to draft the national policy on Indigenous Knowledge Systems. She was formerly a member of the International Faculty of the United Nations International Leadership Academy (Amman-Jordan); and more recently, Prof Hoppers was appointed to the Faculty in the Master of Arts in Indigenous Science and Peace program at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and she is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. She has addressed the International Bar Association, the Swedish Research Council, and Academy of Science of South Africa, the British House of Lords (British Parliament), and the Royal Dutch Shell. She was the Goodwill Ambassador for Makerere University in Kampala Uganda; and Ambassador for Non-Violence at the Durban Universities’ International Centre for Non-Violence. In July 2015, she received the Nelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Award from His Excellency Thabo Mbeki for her pursuit of the total liberation for the African continent through the promotion of Indigenous Knowledge Systems of Education.
