Pronouns - they/them/theirs
Amber L. Johnson, Ph.D., is an award-winning scholar, educator, administrator, and artivist whose work bridges polarized communities and helps communities heal from systems of oppression through dialogue, imagination, art, and critical pedagogy. Currently serving as the Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief of Staff for the Division of Equity & Inclusion, Dr. Johnson has built an international reputation as a leader in communication, social justice, and higher education transformation.
As a former Professor of Communication & Social Justice at Saint Louis University, Dr. Johnson developed innovative courses such as Communicating Across Racial Divisions, Intercultural Communication, and Qualitative Inquiry for Social Justice. Their teaching blends rigorous scholarship with community-engaged learning, guiding students to critically examine systems of oppression while cultivating skills for collaboration and bridge-building across difference. Recognized with multiple awards for teaching and mentorship, Dr. Johnson is known for creating transformative classroom spaces that honor lived experience, foster curiosity, and inspire social action.
Dr. Johnson’s research agenda, described as research-as-activism and activism-as-research, interrogates how language, media, institutions, and research shape identity, power, and inequity. Their scholarship spans five major areas:
- Research Paradigms for Radical Change, which introduces two research paradigms, action and futurity, for scholars wishing to use research as intervention and capacity builder;
- Humanizing Equity, which reimagines justice and equity work through everyday acts of humanization and community-driven solutions;
- Social Identity and Media, examining how traditional and digital media both reinforce and disrupt stereotypes, identity expression, and identity ascription;
- Narrative and Identity Negotiation, using autoethnography to connect personal experience with cultural and political contexts;
- Health Equity & Healing Justice, addressing medical racism, advancing anti-racist frameworks for healthcare, and reimagining community health solutions.
Dr. Johnson's body of work has produced two books, more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, five edited special issues, and over 35 national and international awards, including the Golden Anniversary Monograph Award and multiple honors for engaged scholarship and narrative research.
Beyond the classroom and academy, Dr. Johnson co-founded the Institute for Healing Justice & Equity and created The Justice Fleet, a mobile social justice museum that uses art, dialogue, and play to promote healing and radical imagination. These initiatives have engaged more than 100 community organizations globally and continue to inform both research and pedagogy.
As a sought-after keynote speaker and thought leader, Dr. Johnson is frequently invited to share their expertise on communication, organizational leadership, pedagogy, equity, and healing justice. Their two forthcoming book projects, Humanizing Equity / Healing Justice and Research as Worldmaking: Action, Futurity, and Paradigmatic Visions or Just Futures, extend their vision for an academy and a society rooted in justice, care, and the transformative power of education.
At UC Berkeley, they are working to develop systems and frameworks that help leaders build bridges and opportunities. Dr. Fabrizio Mejia, Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion and Dr. Johnson developed a framework and tool for assessing contextual courage and moving teams from individual assets to collective action, and a new approach to social mobility a stewardship that focuses on creating the conditions for our graduates to give back via opportunity creation and connection.
In their spare time, Amber loves to kayak, sing karaoke, dance, and spend time playing games and laughing with their family and friends.
