Professor Stef Pukallus

Dr Stef Pukallus is Professor of Public Communication and Civil Development at the University of Sheffield and founding Chair of the Hub for the Study of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuilding (HCPB). Her research examines the role public communication plays in the development, strengthening, rebuilding, diminishment or destruction of civil society, in both mature and emerging societies across the globe.

Her 2022 monograph, Communication in Peacebuilding: Civil Wars, Civility and Safe Spaces, set out a model of communicative peacebuilding that has since been widely used in East Africa and the MENA region. She has undertaken consultancy for the United Nations, the European Commission and the European Parliament, and is currently working with educators, peacebuilders and teachers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Pakistan to develop a communicative peace curriculum toolkit for refugee camps, informal settlements, and primary and secondary schools. Her fifth book, Internal Exile: Communication, Complicity and Forgetfulness, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury.

Her work brings an important dimension to GCRD's mission: understanding how communication, inclusion and constructive public discourse build stronger civil societies and more resilient democratic societies.