George B. Johnson


Dr George B. Johnson is a science educator who for many years has written a weekly column "On Science" in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. For over 30 years he was a biology professor at Washington University and a genetics professor at their school of medicine. He has authored 44 scientific papers and ten high school and college widely used biology texts. Over 3 million students have learned biology from these texts.

Education

Johnson got his B.A. in English from Dartmouth College in 1964, and his M.A. in biology, also at Dartmouth College in 1966.
He was granted his Ph.D. in population biology from Stanford University in 1972, his thesis being on genetic variation in alpine butterflies.

Academic career

Johnson was hired as an assistant professor of biology at Washington University in Saint Louis in 1972. He was a visiting Research Fellow at Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, Stanford, California, 1975 - 1976. He was promoted to Associate Professor of Biology of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and also Associate Professor of Genetics at the School of Medicine in 1976. He served as visiting Lector, Genetisk Institute at Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, in 1977.
In 1980 he was promoted to Professor of Biology at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, a position he held until his retirement in 2004. He was also Professor of Genetics at the School of Medicine from 1981 to 2004. During the years 1987 to 1990 he served as founding Director of The Living World education center, St. Louis Zoo.
Since 2004 he has continued at Washington University as Professor Emeritus of Biology.

Writings

Research publications