Andrene Wright-Johnson

Andrene Wright-Johnson is social scientist interested in Black political behavior and urban politics at the intersection of race, gender, and class. She began her appointment as an Assistant Professor in the department of African American Studies in Fall of 2024 and currently serves as a Morgridge Fellow for Public Service. She is also a faculty affiliate in the Political Science department, a faculty affiliate at the University of Wisconsin Election Research Center, and a Senior Research specialist at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Wright’s work seeks to advance our understanding of identity politics, explore the internal dynamics of Black politics more precisely, and situate a Black feminist consciousness in political decision-making. She continues to champion techniques that best account for intra-group differences within marginalized communities and begun extending this focus into maternal health equity and thinking about it as not just a socio-biological issue, but a socio-political one, too. Her work has been supported by the American Political Science Association, the Center for American Women and Politics, the Association for the Study of Black Women and Politics and the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy.