Dr. Jeffrey Johnson

Educator of the Year (7-12)

Dr. Johnson earned his BS and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. After graduation, he joined the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base where he conducted research in machine intelligence and mathematical models of natural intelligence.

Dr. Johnson left the Air Force for academia, first as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Indiana University before moving to the University of Toledo to help to launch the Bioengineering Program. In 2003, he joined the new Biomedical Engineering program at the University of Cincinnati.

In 2015, Dr. Johnson was an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Biomedical, Chemical, and Environmental Engineering programs. As the Undergraduate Director one of his tasks was to address the historic lack of diversity in undergraduate engineering students. Coincidentally, Dr. Johnson was also coaching cross country and Track & Field at Mt. Notre Dame, an all-girls high school. After discussing career plans with the very bright seniors on his team, he learned, first-hand, why so few high school girls choose STEM majors: they are not encouraged to choose STEM fields. In fact, many of the girls on his team were discouraged from majoring in STEM fields.

By the start of the very next school year, Dr. Johnson was teaching geometry to freshman girls at Mt. Notre Dame High School.