Nadine Farid Johnson is the inaugural policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, where she leads policy and advocacy efforts to advance freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age. She is on the faculty of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.
Ms. Johnson is a former U.S. diplomat who served in the Middle East, Africa, and in multilateral affairs. She is the recipient of several awards from the U.S. State Department and is the 2024 Women in Tech Global awardee for North America in Tech Diplomacy.
Ms. Johnson has testified before Congress numerous times on human rights, free expression, and constitutional matters and is a frequent media contributor, with commentary in and appearances on national and international outlets. Previously, she was the managing director of the Washington office and Free Expression Programs at PEN America, served as executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, and led community engagement and operations at Google LA. An attorney by training, she started her career with the U.S. Department of Justice before transitioning to private practice and academia, where she was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and an administrator and professor at Gonzaga University. She holds a J.D. from Tulane University and a B.A. from DePauw University.