If you visited TeenVogue.com recently, you may have seen Alice Johnson ’23. She was featured there earlier this month…not for her fashion sense, but her political engagement.
“I became interested in politics when I started as a field/mobilization intern for a congressional race in 2020 on Long Island. After that I kept doing internships/ jobs.”
Alice Johnson ’23
Political Science Major
Last fall, Alice worked in a paid position for the campaign of Robert Zimmerman, the Nassau County/Queens, NY, Democrat who ran against Republican George Santos. There she led and supervised the interns, or “Zimmterns,” as they were called.
She also became the co-founder of the group Students Against Santos, which launched last November just after the mid-term elections. The group has been working hard, and quite visibly, to get Santos to resign or be expelled.
Her current leadership and activism is an outgrowth of that experience, says Professor Laurel Elder. “She is also drawing on these experiences, and the connections she made, for her senior thesis which explores the lasting effects of volunteering on a campaign on political engagement.”
As for the future, Johnson has several ideas. She is interested in pursuing graduate work in either political communication or political management, having just been accepted to American University for the former while awaiting word from others graduate schools. Should she not take the academic route after graduation, however, she says she is also open to working on new campaigns and continuing political organizing.
Read the Teen Vogue feature, and learn more about Students Against Santos.
As a Baker-Simpson fellow, Chelsea Kotey ’25 is now looking for an internship that will help her combine her passion for healthcare with her rediscovered love of technology.
Johnson shares research opportunities and her unique interests to help students build skills.