Mvemba Phezo Dizolele

GRANTEE

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, a former Pulitzer Center grantee, is a senior fellow and director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a lecturer in African studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to CSIS, he was the Africa senior adviser at the International Republican Institute.

Dizolele has worked as the United Press International Africa Columnist and as a policy analyst at the Center for Global Development; he has also been a William C. and Barbara H. Edwards Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. 

Dizolele holds an international MBA and an MPP from the University of Chicago. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve for six years. Dizolele speaks English, French, Norwegian, Spanish, Swahili, Kikongo and Lingala, and is proficient in Swedish and Danish. A native of Congo, Dizolele was abducted by the Mobutu regime's intelligence service in 1988 and held in political detention for 22 days.