Katherine J. Johnson joined the Anthropology Department in August 2016 after completing her dissertation "Resilience to Climate Change: An Ethnographic Approach." Her current work focuses on the Deal Island Peninsula Project (dealislandpeninsulaproject.org) and seeks to enhance cross social-ecological system collaboration to build resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts. This work, situated in a rural and low-lying coastal community along the Chesapeake Bay in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, is on the leading edge of efforts that will assist local communities in preparing for and adapting to a climate changed future from the ground up. A critical component of this multidisciplinary work is to record and communicate the cross-system understandings held by diverse participants involved with project work. The Project's next component includes a coastal resiliency assessment with significant social science and participatory emphasis and the development of climate change adaptation strategies by the full network. 

Dr. Johnson has taught classes on: Gender and Anthropology, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, and Anthropology and Climate change. She is very interested in expanding environmental anthropology's ability to look at multidiciplinary human-environment problems and concerns and provide key important insights that can be used in applied and practical settings.