Johanna Bankston

Johanna Bankston is a Senior Officer on AFI’s Global Policy & Advocacy team, where she leads research and authors regional and thematic reports on artistic freedom. She also manages several of the program’s advocacy initiatives in international fora.

Prior to joining AFI, Ms. Bankston worked on human rights research and policy with the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development, Terre des Hommes in Hungary, and the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center’s Digital Investigations Lab. Her work has been published in the 2022 volume Digital Identity, Virtual Borders, and Social Media, and her op-eds have appeared in outlets including the Atlantic Council, EUobserver, and Euronews.

Ms. Bankston holds an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and a BS from the University of California, Berkeley.