Resume
Experience
2015 - Present
Founder & Principal Investigator, Global Water Promise
Swani R. Keelson
Founder/CEO
Global Water Promise
Research, advocacy, and policy innovation in water, sanitation, and gender equity. Through multi-method inquiry and decolonial analysis, her work interrogates how governance frameworks frequently aestheticize inclusion while deferring substantive transformation. She examines how the language of “equity” circulates as a floating signifier—performatively signaling compliance with global development norms while eliding structural redistribution. Operating across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and South America, she develops interventions that are not only technically rigorous but also epistemically just—grounded in community-authored knowledge, informed by feminist semiotics, and deliberately resistant to donor-driven optics.
Present
Postdoctoral Research Scholar — Convenor, Webinar Series on Semiotics and Governance
Johns Hopkins Medical Institution
Leads a postdoctoral webinar series that interrogates the symbolic architecture of global governance through the lens of semiotics, deconstruction, and performative critique. These sessions are not mere academic events—they are intellectual interventions. Each webinar dissects the floating signifiers and rhetorical gestures that populate policy discourse, revealing how governance often operates through metrics and aestheticized inclusion rather than substantive transformation.
Education
2023-2025
Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies
Doctor of International Affairs
Doctoral Thesis - Paper Tigers: Deconstruction and Semiotics of Gender Equity as Signifier in Performative Water Governance Policies – A Case Study in Ghana. My research employed a multi-method design—100 surveys, 16 elite interviews, and deconstructive textual analysis of seven gender–water policies (1979–2024)—to interrogate how “gender equity” circulates as a floating signifier within governance discourse. Drawing on deconstruction, semiotics, and theories of tokenism and gender politics, I demonstrated how policy texts function as performative artifacts that aestheticize inclusion while deferring substantive transformation. By situating Ghana’s water governance within broader Sub-Saharan African contexts, the study contributed a novel methodological framework that bridges critical theory with applied policy analysis, exposing the symbolic architectures of governance and advancing pathways for gender-responsive reform.
2019- 2020
Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies
Master of International Public Policy
At Johns Hopkins University SAIS, I earned a Master of International Public Policy degree with a focus on sustainable development. I gained expertise in designing and implementing public health interventions, conducting health research, and evaluating health policies and programs. Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Public Health. During my time there, I gained a solid foundation in the principles of International Public Policy and developed skills in health promotion, disease prevention, and community health education.
Professional skillset
Global Health and Sustainable Development
WASH
Project Management
Data Analysis
Languages
English (native)
Spanish (novice)