AEASP 2025 Scholar Lily Johnson

Lily Johnson is a first-generation college student from Connecticut. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and minored in African American & Black Diaspora Studies from the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. After graduating from BU, Johnson worked as a researcher with the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. During her time there, she's contributed to permanent supportive housing evaluations and helped facilitate a Housing Justice-focused community advisory board of folks with lived experience being unhoused or working in housing support for unsheltered folks. Johnson has also worked on projects associated with Urban's Community Engagement Resource Center, aiming to connect Black, Indigenous, and Latino folks to federal funding streams that have historically been inaccessible, centering them to develop the change they want to see in their communities. As a current research assistant and the Women's Institute for Science, Equity and Race, Johnson plans to continue developing participatory research with a racial equity lens while pursuing an economics PhD. In her free time, Johnson enjoys being outside in nature and spending time with friends.