Karin L. Johnston is the research director at Women In International Security (WIIS) and adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland College Park, and American University. She is an experienced policy analyst and project manager with government, non-profit and academic experience in international security, foreign and security policy analysis, U.S.-European relations, and gender, peace and conflict analysis.
A recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Franklin Fellowship, Johnston served in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, focusing on the Bureau’s security sector portfolio and stabilization strategies. She helped expand CSO’s security sector expertise in security sector reform (SSR), Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) of armed groups, and foreign assistance and stabilization strategies. While at CSO, Johnston co-authored a practitioner’s guide on DDR and defections with the UK Stabilization Unit that has been utilized in SSR efforts in Cameroon, Mozambique and West Africa.
Johnston has written on German policy decision-making and the politics of military intervention, international public opinion and media and politics, U.S. and transatlantic foreign and defense policy and gender equality in the European Union. Fluent in German, Johnston was a Mercator Fellow at the University of Duisburg-Essen and a former fellow of the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park and an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.