founder/Principal

Alexandra Johnston, Ph.D.

Alex has had a lifelong passion for understanding cultural and communicative diversity. She has published book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on language and communication, and has delivered professional development programs, workshops and seminars nationally and internationally.

She was the first person to win permission from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services to record and analyze interviews with applicants for permanent-residency visas, the final face-to-face interview in which an immigration officer decides to approve or deny a ‘green card’ to a potential immigrant. Her research focused on how misunderstood verbal and nonverbal cues affect those decisions and on the conscious and unconscious biases that drive decision making by people with institutional power.

Growing up in the university town of Champaign-Urbana, IL, she was lucky to be surrounded by family friends from many countries, which sparked her interest in learning Spanish and Japanese at an early age. She spent two years in Japan living with several homestay families who taught her the nuances of Japanese cultural practices. During her time in Japan, she also completed a Fulbright research fellowship, gave presentations in Japanese, taught English, and traveled solo around East Asia. She earned her doctorate in Linguistics from Georgetown University.

Today, Alex turns linguistic research into practical, effective communication tools that clients can put to immediate use. The results of her research in government, corporate, and private-family settings help clients understand how they appear to others and how to adjust their communication to achieve their goals. 

She lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area with her husband and two boys.

Education

Georgetown University
Ph.D. Linguistics

Stanford University
M.A. East Asian Studies

University of Illinois
M.A. Teaching English as a Second Language

Washington University in St. Louis
B.A. East Asian Studies and International Relations

Affiliations

• Fulbright Association Lifetime Member

Certifications

• Intercultural communication trainer
• English as a Second Language instructor

Selected Publications

• "Comembership in Immigration Gatekeeping Interviews". 2008. Discourse & Society. 19(1) 21-41.
• "Gatekeeping in the family: How family members position one another as decision makers". 2007. In: Deborah Tannen, Shari Kendall and Cynthia Gordon (eds.), Family Talk: Discourse and Identity in Four American Families. Oxford University Press. 165-193.