Diana Hornby is currently the Director of Community Engagement at Rhodes University with 25 years of experience in the Early Childhood and Community Development fields.  As the previous director of the Centre for Social Development at Rhodes University, she developed a best practice ECD model that received national recognition.   She won South Africa’s Most Influential Women in Business and Government Award for her work from 2007 at the Angus Gillis Foundation (Ubunye), a rural development NPO, strongly focusing on pro-poor models of development.

In 2021, her team was awarded 1st place, for the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship for the 9/10th Matric Mentoring Programme. She has been part of a team that has revitalised public education in Makhanda, moving the city from being the worst performing to the best performing for 3 consecutive years in terms of Grade 12 results.  She has a B Ed Honours, Masters, is reading for her PhD at Rhodes University and published in community engagement and community development