Dr Peter Nkala is currently the substantive Executive Dean of the Faculty of Commerce (July 2017 – date) and is the interim Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Southern Africa Resilient Livelihoods Universities Network (SARLUN).  He has acted as the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Business Development at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST, Bulawayo Zimbabwe (February 2020-30 April 2021). Dr Nkala is the inaugural Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the National University of Science and Technology and also worked as a Coordinator of the MA Economics Programmes at the Catholic University of Mozambique (2006-2008). Dr Nkala is currently the interim Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Southern Africa Resilient Livelihoods Universities Network (SARLUN), a network of six Universities in the SADC focusing on research and community projects strategizing on improving livelihoods resilience in the region. He has examined MPhil and PhDs in the areas of Economics and Finance for Universities of the Free State (South Africa), Fort Hare (South Africa), Makerere (Uganda) and the CUT (Zimbabwe) among others. Dr Nkala holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher and Tertiary Education from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), a BSc (Hons) Economics, MSc Economics from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) and an earned PhD in Economics and Social Science from the University of Natural and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. Dr Nkala has more than 15 peer reviewed publications in various journals over a period spanning over 15 years. His research interests and publications are in the Managerial Economics, Development Economics, International Trade and Development Theory as well as Development Studies and Disaster Management in general.