Biography
Dr Joshua Z. Walker is a researcher and policy consultant with more than two decades of expertise in the politics, violent conflict, and political economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.
Until June 2026, he served as Director of Programs at the Congo Research Group (at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation), leading field-based research and analysis with a team in New York and Kinshasa.
He has advised and worked with organizations including MONUSCO, the World Bank Group, The Carter Center, and UNICEF, and has briefed diplomats and officials at the UN Security Council and US State Department, among others.
His research and analysis has appeared in Foreign Affairs, American Ethnologist, and The Conversation.
He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, an MSc from LSE, and a BA from McGill, and speaks English, French, Tshiluba, and Lingala.
Past experience
| 2019–2026 | Director of Programs, Congo Research Group (Center on International Cooperation, New York University) |
| 2018–2019 | Research Associate, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand |
| 2014–2018 | Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand |
