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College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science
Prof Steven Dene Johnson
Professor Steve Johnson holds the South African Research Chair in Evolutionary Biology and is a Professor in the School of Life Sciences on UKZN's Pietermaritzburg campus.
His PhD on the pollination of plants in the Cape flora was obtained from the University of Cape Town in 1994 and he has since become a leading specialist in the field of plant pollination biology.
Johnson's research is aimed at understanding the evolutionary diversification of plants, particularly in southern Africa, the conservation of plant-pollinator mutualisms, and the reproductive biology of invasive species. He has recently developed a strong interest in the role of floral volatiles in mediating specialized plant-pollinator interactions, and has established a state-of-the-art laboratory for the study of chemical cues used by plants to attract insect pollinators.
Johnson has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, co-authored a book on the Natural History of Table Mountain and has also written a large variety of popular science articles.
He is currently on the editorial boards of two international journals, Oecologia and Arthropod-Plant Interactions. He received the NRF President's Award in 1999 and currently holds an A2-rating from the NRF. In 2010 he received UKZN’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s Award. And this year the NRF-DST Research Chair Grant.