PhD Student Profile: Natasha Johnson

NATASHA JOHNSON ASKS: HOW CAN WE HELP BLACK YOUTH THRIVE?

Natasha Johnson is a Joint PhD “I do a lot of work around adolescence. “It was an easy decision to come back candidate in Social Work and There’s a transition between having home to Michigan for my doctoral Psychology studying resilience more autonomy in your social spaces, program,” she says. “I was here as an in Black youth. Her research examines and having more interactions with adults employee working with graduate how Black youth understand racial who are not your parents. So if I’m students and with professors who had oppression. looking at how Black youth become active research labs; I couldn’t think of aware of racial oppression, I have to look any other place I wanted to be. Now, I Her goal is to work in the K-12 school at the individual within these larger am doing the work that I want to do with systems with Black students and contexts,” she explains. “I take a holistic the professors whom I want to do it with, marginalized students, and to learn what approach with my research. What are who are renowned in their fields.” helps them to thrive academically. “We some things that are stressors within know education is one of the singular their environments? Who are in Johnson had an aha moment in most important things that affect social mobility and health,” she says. “A lot of disparities that we see in communities are tied to race. I see myself addressing communities with adolescents? And how can those adults best support youth to thrive in educational contexts?” Professor Daphne Watkins’ course on community interventions. “The single most important thing I learned is that community members are the experts of those disparities through mental health As an undergraduate at Spelman College their lived experiences. All of this advocacy and interventions.” in Georgia, Johnson worked in the research that we do is amazing, right? Atlanta public school system, but she We spend a lot of time doing it, Johnson’s area of psychology is never considered a future in education. disentangling it, unpacking it, and then personality and social context, which Then she was assigned an MSW field developing and creating knowledge, focuses on individuals through both placement at an alternative high school but when you are doing work with micro and macro levels of identity and in Southfield, Michigan. “I had a moment communities, you start with them, society. “Essentially I’m thinking about where I thought, ‘Oh...I get it. This is with their needs and without people in their environment. We can look where I need to be.’ I hadn’t recognized preconceived notions. at other factors that help us to the pattern, but my trajectory placed me understand a person: their family in this work,” she explains. “Now, I can’t “I’m being intentional to prepare myself environment, their social environment, think of a better place to do my work as a scholar and to do the best work their social experiences, their than school spaces. I can do.” experiences with peers.

“I’m being intentional to prepare myself as a scholar and to do the best work I can do.”

– Natasha Johnson, Joint PhD Candidate

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Sunghyun Hong, MSW ’19 School of Social Work Scholarship

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