Dr. Hawley Johnson is the Associate Director of Columbia Global Freedom of Expression. Since 2014, she has led the development of the Case Law Database, which features analyses of landmark freedom of expression rulings from over 130 countries. She regularly serves as a judge for the Price Media Law Moot Court and supports the MENA regional rounds organized by Ain Shams Law School in Cairo, Egypt. Her research focuses on disinformation, hate speech, and platform regulation. Dr. Johnson has delivered oral observations on freedom of expression and unprotected speech to the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2025, she was a contributing author to Chilling Effect: A Comparative Analysis of the Case Law from the African, European, and Inter-American Human Rights Systems, among other publications.

Hawley has over twenty years of experience in international media development both academically and professionally, with a focus on Eastern Europe. From 2013-2014 she worked with the award-winning Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project to launch the Investigative Dashboard (ID), a joint effort with Google Ideas offering specialized databases and research tools for journalists in emerging democracies.  Previously, as the Associate Director of the Media and Conflict Resolution Program at New York University, she oversaw the implementation of over eight US government sponsored media development programs in eleven countries. In 2012, she completed her Ph.D. in Communications at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her dissertation – a study of the evolution of media development policies in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia – was grounded in extensive field research in the region. She has a M.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in International Affairs from the School of International Service at American University.