Andi Johnson

As Director of the First-Year Experience, Andi Johnson helps guide curricular and co-curricular opportunities for first-year students in the College of Arts & Sciences. A central facet of Johnson’s role involves supporting the faculty and staff who make these opportunities possible.

As a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the History & Sociology of Science Department, Johnson has taught undergraduate students in the Health & Societies (HSOC) and Science, Technology, & Society (STSC) programs for over fifteen years. Her courses have focused on the history of health policy in the U.S., the social basis of health and illness, and the social construction of scientific and medical knowledge. Johnson’s teaching has spanned first-year seminars, large lecture courses, capstone research seminars, honors theses, critical writing seminars, critical speaking (CWiC) seminars, and a Paideia-supported local experiential research seminar in which students collaborate with community health experts across the city of Philadelphia. In 2006, Johnson was awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student, and in 2020, Johnson was awarded the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by Affiliated Faculty.

A historian and anthropologist of science and medicine, Johnson’s NSF-funded historical and ethnographic work on sport science and physiology has appeared in places like the Journal of the History of Biology; Social Studies of Science; Sports, Society, and Technology; and the Handbook of the Historiography of Biology.