Sisanda Nkoala is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape. She is the winner of the 2023 NIHSS Digital Humanities: Best Visualisation or Infographic award, the recipient of the 2023 Western Cape Cultural Affairs Award for Best Researcher Contributing to Archival Heritage and the 2023 HERS-SA Young Women Leader in Higher Education winner for 2023.

She holds a PhD in rhetoric studies at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Rhetoric Studies. She researches rhetoric and South African media ecologies. She also publishes on multilingualism in higher education and journalism studies.

She serves as the vice-chair of the IAMCR’s media education research section, the African Journalism Educators Network secretary-general, and an associate editor for the Journal of Communication Technology. Sisanda Nkoala is a former senior lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology's media department. She is a former award-winning journalist.