Originally from Wayzata, Minnesota, Johnna is a graduate of UW-Madison where she majored in Economics and Political Science. During her time at Madison, she held leadership positions with Madison’s chapter of Amnesty International and interned with several organizations, including the United Nations Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Association. Additionally, she completed several service-learning projects working with vulnerable populations in Philadelphia, Nicaragua and Cambodia. Her junior year, she studied Swahili and development in Zanzibar, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya as a Boren Scholar. While in Kenya, she also had the opportunity to intern with Ruben Microfinance in the Mukuru slum and research challenges women entrepreneurs face within the community. Next year, Johnna is excited to explore more of East Africa, improve her French, and learn about community-led development initiatives through her work with Spark.
The International Rescue Committee has been so fortunate to have had a longstanding relationship with Princeton in Africa since our very first Fellows landed in Rwanda in 1999. Whether it was Emily or Renee in 1999 or the 110 Fellows across 14 IRC countries over the years, we have been blessed by the relationship, the quality of the Fellows and the impact on what IRC does on the ground every single day.