Shindy Johnson

Shindy Melanie Johnson started her professional career as a STEM educator having completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Physics at the University of Guyana, South America. After migrating to the United States and teaching Chemistry and General Science at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, Shindy earned a Master or Arts in Science Education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education. Her interest in emerging digital technologies then led her to complete a Masters in Professional Studies at New York University’s -Tisch-ITP program.

Shindy returned to New York University in 2021 as a Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor in the Tisch-ITP program, co-founding The COVID-19 Impact Project and teaching the cross-disciplinary courses “COVID-19 Impact Project: Extracting Stories from Data” and  “Data Storytelling for Social Resilience”. The COVID-19 Impact Project is a student-involved research project at ITP which aims to be the leading data storyteller of the COVID-19 pandemic, by documenting the pandemic’s unequal impact on communities of color, and sharing the historical precedents and lingering effects of this ongoing inequity.  Shindy’s goal is to develop this project into a full fledged interdisciplinary research institute at New York University.

NYU Grants, Awards, Symposia 
As leader of the COVID-19 Impact Project, Shindy, along with Chair Emeritus of ITP, Dan O’Sullivan, is an awardee of the 2024-2025 Tisch Mega Grants Incubator administered by the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research.  Shindy is also a  2022 - 2023 recipient of a Teaching Advancement Grant (TAG) along with co-founder John Henry Thompson and colleague Marianne Petit.  Shindy participated in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Spring 2024 Symposium conducted by The Office of the Provost as a speaker on the faculty panel titled “Getting Started with SoTL Research”. 

NYU Committees, Community and Partnerships   
Shindy has been a two time panelist and mentor for Tisch HEAR US (Honoring, Elevating, and Recapitalizing Underrepresented Stories) mentorship program dedicated to supporting student projects that center marginalized voices and narratives. She is ITP’s Program Liaison to the College and Career Lab’s (CCL’s) Exploratory Stage and Immersion Stage programs that expose middle and high school students from underserved backgrounds to ITP and emerging media technologies. Shindy is an active participant in the Tisch Arts and Health Community Conversations (sponsored jointly by The Office of the Dean and the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research) where she showcased the COVID-19 Impact Project at the first ever Tisch Arts and Health Convergence in 2023. Shindy has also served on the faculty committee of ITP’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative - The Equitable Working Group. 

Shindy has taught locally and internationally from the elementary to post secondary levels and worked in various careers from the banking sector to Wall Street. Shindy’s passion for issues of equity involving children and youth has led to several large-scale volunteer projects.  She led the Parents Association at New York City’s famed LaGuardia Performing Arts High School; youth development projects at her high school alma mater in Georgetown, Guyana; and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging efforts at Greenwood Music Camp - the world's oldest continuously running residential chamber music camp.

In her free time, Shindy is a cooking and sustainable gardening enthusiast. This led to her creating the ITP Community Herb Garden, an ongoing experiment in urban container gardening, on the 4th floor balcony at ITP’s 370 Jay Street location.  She is looking for partners to further explore sustainable gardening in inhospitable urban settings.

Websites:
https://itp.nyu.edu/covid19impactproject/
https://cookingwithshindy.com/
https://qcsmi.wordpress.com/