Dr. Michael D. Johnson earned his B.S. degree in Zoology from Washington State University after which he moved East to earn a Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Michigan.  After finishing a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School he joined the faculty of West Virginia University, where he remained for most of his career.

From 2001 to 2006 Dr. Johnson resided within the Sultanate of Oman, where he served as Founding Dean of a new medical school being built in academic partnership with West Virginia University.  Following a brief interval back home at West Virginia University, in 2008 he moved to Qatar to take the position of Associate Dean for Premedical Education at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.  He returned to the USA in 2011 to focus on writing and on researching subjects of interest in Human Biology.

Dr. Johnson received a number of teaching awards throughout his career, including the West Virginia University Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award and the Distinguished Teacher Award of the School of Medicine.  He’s a member of the National Association of Biology Teachers, the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, American Physiological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.