Welcome!

My research lies at the intersection of public policy, the criminal legal system, and historical institutionalism within the field of American politics. My book project, which won the Harvard Department of Government Robert Noxon Toppan prize for the best dissertation upon a subject of political science, focuses on the ways in which the state designs systems of punishment as a form of social control and how people who are subjected to those forms of control respond at the local level.

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University in May 2023. During my doctoral studies, I was a Malcolm Wiener Ph.D. Scholar in Poverty and Justice, and during the 2022-23 academic year I was a Dissertation Research Fellow at the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in political science and philosophy in 2016. In 2022 I graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with a Master of Legal Studies.

I am on the job market during the 2024-25 academic year!

When I’m not working I enjoy relaxing, making art, and investing time in my most recent hobby.

You can contact me at: kanrjohnson [at] gmail [dot] com