Associate Provost Chris Johnson to Step Down From Academic Affairs Administrative Post, Return to ECS Faculty Full Time

After nearly five years of service as associate provost for academic affairs, Chris Johnson has announced he will step down from his administrative role and return to full-time faculty duties in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS).

“Chris has been an extraordinary partner, advisor, collaborator and leader through some of the most dynamic and challenging times in higher education,” says Vice Chancellor and Provost Gretchen Ritter. “His leadership was critical to helping faculty, students and academic staff navigate the pandemic and subsequent return to campus. Much of his work over the last five years set a strong foundation for growth in academic programs with a focus on innovation, inclusion, integrity and accountability. Thanks to his leadership, our community is benefiting from new metrics for measuring academic program performance, a strong record of accreditation and program reviews, and expansion in the Center for Learning and Student Success and the Center for Disability Resources.”

Johnson was appointed associate provost in September 2018. He started his career at Syracuse in 1989 as a postdoctoral research associate and joined the civil and environmental engineering faculty the following year, chairing the department from 2010-14 after one year as interim chair. Johnson was also interim director of the Renée Crown University Honors Program from July 2016 until June 2018, and has served on many committees and task forces within ECS and across the University.

“I have had the privilege of working with a wonderful team of professionals in the Office of Academic Affairs and many outstanding faculty, staff and students on a wide range of issues and initiatives,” says Johnson. “Syracuse is a truly great university and is heading in a promising direction thanks to the good work of so many members of our community. I am grateful for the opportunity to work on so many interesting projects over the last five years. Now I look forward to returning full time to research and teaching.”

“We are thrilled to have Chris return full time to our faculty,” says ECS Dean J. Cole Smith, noting that Johnson earned the Faculty Excellence Award for Excellence in Graduate Education in 2012. “He is beloved by his students and highly respected by his colleagues both in the college and across disciplines for the collaborative way he brings together engineers, natural scientists, social scientists and others in relevant and impactful research.”

Johnson has taught courses in environmental chemistry, soil chemistry, data analysis and surveying. In the Honors Program, he has taught Water for Gotham, a course on the New York City water supply system, and The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome.

In addition to serving on the engineering faculty at Syracuse, Johnson has served as a visiting faculty member at Charles University in Prague and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He is involved in numerous research projects in the broad area of environmental chemistry, including work on the fate of trace metals in forest soils and landscapes; the effects of clear-cut logging on soils and drainage waters; and the changing acid-base chemistry of soils historically affected by acid rain. His principal research sites are in the Catskills and Adirondack regions of New York, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Johnson has served on advisory panels for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academies, the National Science Foundation and the Swedish Research Council. He earned a B.S. in civil engineering, an M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in geology, all from the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, and was a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic in 1994.

As Johnson concludes his time as associate provost, Provost Ritter will begin the process to identify his successor. More information will be shared on those efforts soon.