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Northland College appoints new Biology and Natural Resources faculty member

April 4, 2011

Northland College has named Northland alumna Sarah Johnson to a tenure track faculty appointment as an assistant professor of Biology and Natural Resources beginning Fall 2011.

“Northland provided me with a strong foundation of natural history and ecological knowledge that continues to inspire my research and guide my collaborations with regional agencies,” says Johnson. “I credit the close-knit community of informed and energetic faculty, students and staff at Northland for generating a stimulating learning-and-doing environment, and I am eager to again be a part of this community.”

A Northland College alumna, Johnson received her Master’s degree in Biology from East Carolina University and a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Johnson joins the Northland faculty from a post-doctoral role with University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has worked to develop collaborations with the National Park Service’s Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network and with The Nature Conservancy in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Johnson’s research focuses on the long-term dynamics and patterns of diversity and composition in plant communities of the Great Lakes region, and she has worked closely with the National Park Service on many projects. She played a key role in implementing one of the first large-scale efforts to monitor the influence of white-tailed deer on plant community structure.

“It has been a dream of mine to teach field botany and ecology courses to undergraduate students,” says Johnson, “and I am proud to be able to do so at a college whose curriculum places such a strong emphasis on natural history knowledge and application.”

At Northland, Johnson will serve as a faculty member in the Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences departments and will deliver courses to the Biology and Natural Resources majors.