Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies

Jennifer Johnson is an Associate Professor of History. Her research focuses on 20th century Africa, specifically the Maghrib, nationalism, decolonization, humanitarianism, and public health. She is the author of The Battle for Algeria: Sovereignty, Health Care, and Humanitarianism (Human Rights Series, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) and other articles and essays that have appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Contemporary European History, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Humanity, and the forthcoming edited volume, Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Birth of Global Human Rights Politics (Cambridge University Press). Her current book project examines the relationship between public health and state building. Specifically, it explores family planning programs in postcolonial Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and shows how newly independent regimes partnered with international organizations on this particular initiative to develop their countries and expand their national health services in the wake of decolonization.

She holds a BA in History from Brown and a PhD in History from Princeton University. Her work has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the National History Center, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.