Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson is an environmental education and program evaluation specialist with more than 20 years of experience in the field. He is the co-founder of Inform Evaluation & Research, where he specializes in the evaluation of learning at informal science and conservation institutions such as zoos, aquariums, and science centers. Until August 2017, he served as the Director of Educational Research and Evaluation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, where he established a research and evaluation unit at the WCS zoos and aquarium in New York City. Additionally, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Lancashire Global Education Centre in Preston, UK. He has also served as Education Officer for Botanic Gardens Conservation International, where he directed the organization’s plant conservation education programs in the United States. Brian has also directed environmental education programs at the nation’s first urban Audubon center in New York City, and served for five years as Senior Faculty with the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.

Brian holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies from Antioch University New England, an M.S. in environmental education from Lesley University, and a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University. His Ph.D. research focused on the relationship between environmental education and improvements in environmental quality. In other words, can environmental education be an effective response to poor environmental quality? (To download a copy of Brian's Ph.D. dissertation, visit http://tinyurl.com/bjohnsonphd) His current research interests focus on identifying and measuring the long-term effects of informal science learning at zoos and aquariums, as well as evaluation capacity building at informal learning institutions. He has been the PI/Co-PI for two research grants from the National Science Foundation. His research has been published in Environmental Education Research, the Journal of Urban Ecology, and the Journal of College Science Teaching.