Jacquelyn Johnston graduated in 2021 with a Ph.D. in the Global and Sociocultural Studies Department at Florida International University. Johnston spent over a decade working in nonprofit and government animal welfare organizations, earned an MBA from FIU and an MS in Veterinary Forensic Science from the University of Florida. Her current research intersects biopolitical analysis and more-than-human geography. She focuses on the political invocation of ferality in government programs managing stray populations of dogs and cats, incongruous legal requirements for culling animals as legislatively determined by custody, links between animal advocacy and political response as "humane" programs, and the arbitrary and contingent ways ferality is operationalized in animal welfare debates between domestic and wild life advocates. Future projects aim to further problematize the way nonhuman animals are classified through politicized programs and anthropocentric narratives, including the way "invasive" and "nonnative" animals are rendered killable and the ongoing disruption of urban ecosystems through the untempered destruction of "nuisance" urban animals. 

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Johnston is currently managed by an eight-year-old human, three Dobermans, two cats, and one overzealous Chihuahua. She's currently working on papers about urban animals in South Florida, with specific discussions involving "feral" cats, green iguanas, a parking lot full of over 20 species of birds, and small/medium mammalian predators like raccoons and opossums.