Dr. Lonwabo Makapela is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Psychology (Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology) at the University of Bern, and an Associate at the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. She holds a PhD in Human Resource Management from the University of Pretoria.

Her research sits at the intersection of Human Resource Management, Organizational Behaviour, leadership, and Social Psychology. She studies how organisational norms, leadership systems, and workplace cultures shape identity expression, inclusion, legitimacy, and career outcomes within professional contexts. Her work particularly examines race, gender, social class, intersectionality, self-presentation, professionalism norms, and workplace bias, with a growing focus on leadership and organisational inclusion.

She is best known for the HAIR model, a theoretical framework examining how hair bias and workplace microaggressions shape Black women's experiences at work, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Drawing on theories of identity, embodiment, and aesthetic labour, her research explores how social hierarchies are reproduced and negotiated within organisations and labour markets. Her work has also appeared in the SA Journal of Human Resource Management and has been presented at the Academy of Management, where her coauthored 2023 conference paper was recognised among the conference's best papers.

Dr. Makapela is a Fulbright Program alumna, having conducted research in Organizational Behaviour at the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management, and is a recipient of the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship (ESKAS). In 2023, she was named among the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans in the Civil Society category. She has also held visiting and research positions at Lagos Business School at Pan-Atlantic University and has taught at both the University of Cape Town and the University of Bern.