Tebello Nyokong holds a Department of Science and Innovation/National Research Foundation (DSI/NRF) Research chair at Rhodes University, South Africa. She is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and the Director of Institute for Nanotechnology Innovation at the same university.  She is an NRF A rated researcher (A rating is defined as leading international researcher). She has successfully supervised over 170 MSc/PhD/post-doc students.  She has published over 950 manuscripts (including editing a book and book chapters and patents).

She has received many awards for her research on photodynamic therapy of cancer and on eliminating antimicrobial resistance: Awarded honorary doctorates from McMaster University and Western University in Canada, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry,  Linstead lifetime Career Award on phthalocyanine chemistry, African Union Kwame Nkrumah award, and L'Oreal-UNESCO award for 'Women in Science'.

She was part of United Nation's Secretary General's High Level Panel for the development  of supporting mechanism for the least developed countries  and she was invited by Director-General of UNESCO, to be a member of the UNESCO High-level panel on Science, Technology and Innovation for sustainable Development.