Professor Mark Johnson

From October 1st 2017 Prof Mark Johnson is Professor of Experimental Psychology (1931) and Head of the Department of Psychology. He obtained his BSc in Biological Sciences with honours in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, and his PhD from Cambridge. In between two periods as a Research Scientist at the Medical Research Council’s Cognitive Development Unit in London (1985-89 and 1994-98), he was Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. In 1997 he moved with MRC funding to Birkbeck, University of London, and established the Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development.

He has published over 360 papers and 10 books on brain and cognitive development in human infants, children and in other species. His laboratory currently focuses on typical, at-risk and atypical functional brain development in human infants and toddlers using a variety of different brain imaging, cognitive, behavioural, genetic and computational modelling techniques. He is an elected fellow of several academic societies, including the Association for Psychological Science (2004), the Cognitive Science Society (2012), and the British Academy (2011). He is also recipient of awards such as the Queen’s Anniversary Prize (2006), the BPS President’s Award (2008), the EPS mid-career award (2009), the Huttenlocher Prize (2015), and the William Thierry Preyer Award (2017; joint with Annette Karmiloff-Smith).