Dr. Johanna M. Lukate

I am an author, researcher and keynote speaker from Mannheim, Germany.

I studied Cultural Sciences at the Fernuniversität Hagen before moving to England to pursue a B.A. in Psychology. I hold a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge and was the 2017-2018 Fox Fellow at Yale University. At present, I head the Minerva Fast Track Research Group “Migration, Identity and Blackness in Europe”, jointly situated at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany.

As a researcher with a background in social and cultural psychology, I explore how our identity is shaped by personal experience, social norms, and cultural narratives, with a particular focus on how identity is expressed in and through Black hair. My research bridges academic scholarship and lived experience, offering new insights into the psychology of impression management, self-perception and belonging. My work has been published in a number of anthologies and academic journals as well as being featured on the TEDx stage with a talk about The Psychology of Black Hair.

I live in Berlin with my husband and two children.

I am represented by Eli Keren at Curious Minds Agency.