Natalie Johnson

Natalie Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in United States History. Her interests include the history of political thought, the history of the social sciences, and the evolution of theories of race and culture.

Her dissertation, Strange Indirections: The Science of Systems and the Reimagination of Democracy on the American Home Front, explores how war-era research projects changed the ways in which scientists and scholars thought about democracy.  By examining the intellectual trajectory of figures like Harold Lasswell, Margret Mead, and Alexander Leighton, her dissertation traces the development of a set of ideas about democracy that reconciled democratic principles with technocratic management and military occupation.