Shawnika E. Johnson

Shawnika holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from CPP, and a Masters of Applied Gender Studies from Claremont Graduate University.  She is also a second-year doctoral student earning a PhD in Politics and Government with an emphasis on Public Policy. 

Shawnika's research addresses environmental injustice in communities of color; and political behavior of female legislators specializing in social and environmental injustice. For instance, her most recent academic research, “African American Female Legislative Behavior in the Georgia State Legislature: Position, Policy & Power”, examines the political behavior of African American female legislators in comparison to their White female counterparts. This research seeks to answer the following: 1) Are African American female legislators monolithic in their policy choices? 2) Do they introduce/sponsor more African American Interest, Minority Interest, and Special Interest bills than their White female counterparts? and 3) Do they introduce/sponsor more bills overall than their White female counterparts?  In other words, this study seeks to identify distinct political behavior of African American female legislators by measuring the types of bills they author/sponsor in comparison to White female legislators.  This research was presented at the Women’s and Gender Studies Conference in April 2021.  Shawnika will also be collaborating with her doctoral committee to expand this research by comparing the political behavior of African American female legislators in the State of Georgia to that of their White male, White female, and African American male counterparts between 2011 and 2021 for her dissertation.