Timothy Johns

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Professor (retired)

tim.johns [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Professor Johns is not accepting graduate students

 

Degrees

BSc, Biochemistry, McMaster University, 1972
MSc, Botany, University of British Columbia, 1980
PhD, Botany, University of Michigan, 1985

Short Bio

Dr. Johns is a retired Professor of Human Nutrition at McGill University. Prof. Johns is an ethnobotanist and nutritionist whose research interests focus on the traditional uses of plants for food and medicine in relation to issues of contemporary nutrition and health, the understanding of human adaptation in diverse environments and the evolutionary origins of diet and medicine. His work involves field studies with communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Canada in conjunction with laboratory analysis of chemical composition and medicinal properties of plants. His current work includes international policy and  program activities on dietary diversity that seek to strengthen linkages between biodiversity conservation and nutrition and health. He is an author of over 130 peer-reviewed publications as well as three books including With Bitter Herbs They Shall Eat it: Chemical Ecology and the Origins of Human Diet and Medicine (University of Arizona Press).Dr. Johns graduated in Biochemistry from McMaster University and completed a Master’s degree in Botany from the University of British Columbia. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Michigan before carrying out postdoctoral work at the University of California Berkeley. He is a member and former Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment at McGill. He is a Past-President of the International Society of Ethnobiology and the Society for Economic Botany.

Awards and Recognitions

1987-97 University Research Fellowship, NSERC
1985 Distinguished Dissertation Award, Council of Graduate Schools USA/University Microfilms International
1985 Edmund H. Fulling Award, Society for Economic Botany

Research

Dr. Timothy Johns is a nutritionist and ethnobotanist whose research interests focus on the traditional uses of plants for food and medicine in relation to issues of contemporary nutrition and health, the understanding of human adaptation in diverse environments and the evolutionary origins of diet and medicine. His work involves field studies with communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Canada in conjunction with laboratory analysis of chemical composition and medicinal properties of plants.        

a) Agricultural biodiversity contributions to  nutrition, food security and health: establishing the evidence-base

b) Ecological, socio-cultural and health determinants of agricultural technology adoption in East Africa

c) Traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and the transformation of local and global food systems

Publications

Find a full list of Dr Johns' publications HERE.

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