Jennifer Johnson-Hanks
Why did you choose Northwestern?
I came to Northwestern in order to work with an amazing team of professors—Caroline Bledsoe, Jane Guyer, Helen Schwartzman, and Sara Berry. There was simply nowhere else in the country that had a comparable concentration of scholarly talent in my areas of interest.
How would you describe your research and/or work to a non-academic audience? What was it then and/or what it is now?
My dissertation focused on a specific empirical problem: why and how do educated women in Africa have their first children so much later than do less educated women? Answering this question requires integrating quantitative analysis of population-level data with ethnographic data collection through fieldwork. It is part of a broader set of questions about how culture and individual choice work together to produce statistical patterns in marriage, childbearing, and divorce. For example, in rich western countries, it used to be the case that the larger the fraction of women in the labor force, the lower the birthrate; today, that pattern has reversed. Why? How? Those are the kinds of empirical questions at the heart of demographic anthropology and cultural demography.
Over time, my research has become less focused on specific empirical questions and more engaged with broader, theoretical issues. The book I am finishing now, for example, explores what we can know about the social and cultural worlds by using quantitative data, and what kinds of quantitative data and analysis will be most productive for answering contemporary questions, including those around race and inequality. Basically, what can we know, and how can we know it?
Tell us who or what inspired your research and/or work.
I studied anthropology in order to do social science for the public good. Working for the public good is a multi-generational commitment in my family. Doctors, teachers, attorneys, preachers: I was raised to believe that we have an obligation to contribute to the collective good. My scholarship was initially focused on practical questions related to economic development in poor countries because that seemed like the best way to serve the public good. As my research became more theoretical, I have sought to contribute in a practical way through academic administration. Public higher education has a critical role to play in serving the public good. A high-quality liberal arts education is transformative, both for the individual and for society as a whole.
What are you most proud of in your career to date?
I am currently chair of the Berkeley Academic Senate, and over the past year, we have focused on keeping our community safe through the pandemic, sustaining our scholarly and pedagogical mission, and building community and a sense of belonging for all. Although it has been very hard, we have mostly succeeded. Our infection rates have remained lower than the surrounding community, student success is holding strong, and we have even continued to make modest progress on some of the measures that we track, including racial achievement gaps. Keeping people safe and moving forward has required faculty, staff, and students working closely together, and I am proud of how everyone in the campus community has contributed.
Tell us about a current achievement or something you're working on that excites you.
On July 1, I will become the Executive Dean of the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley. We have so much exciting work to do! L&S is the liberal arts core of a great public university, and the Dean’s role is to elevate our dual mission of fundamental research and educating students for lives of promise. One of my key goals is to strengthen undergraduate education around the ideas of welcome and wayfinding. By “welcome”, I mean that all of our students—regardless of their background or identity--should feel a profound sense of belonging in the College of Letters and Science. By “wayfinding”, I mean that our students can find their way through the curriculum, building courses of study that are meaningful and transformational.
What advice would you give your younger self or someone considering a similar path?
Everyone, no matter who they are, has a contribution to make. Everyone, no matter who they are, can teach you something valuable. It is your job to figure out how to learn from each person you meet, and how to support them in making the best contribution they can.