John D. Johnson

John Johnson is an IEEE Senior Member and active IEEE volunteer who has served in many capacities including: IEEE Iowa-Illinois Computer Society Chapter chair/founder, Iowa-Illinois Section chair, and chair of committees for Region 4, MGA, and IEEE-USA. Johnson has led efforts to educate and raise awareness with the public and in K–12 through STEM activities and the development of education standards and computer science curricula.

Johnson received a PhD in nuclear physics from The University of Texas at Austin and has 22 years of direct experience as an information security practitioner in the public and private sectors. Johnson was network and security manager for the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos and then spent 17 years as a global security architect at John Deere. Johnson is currently CEO/founder of Aligned Security, through which he consults and advises on cybersecurity and risk management. He is also an adjunct professor at Excelsior College, where he develops and teaches graduate cybersecurity courses.

Johnson is proficient at building effective professional networks to share information security standards, establish best practices between information security professionals, and collectively raise the bar for the information security industry. He is a founding member of Security Advisor Alliance, and a Fellow at Ponemon Institute. He is a frequent speaker and has served on program boards for international cybersecurity conferences, such as Black Hat and RSA Conference, as well as serving on various advisory boards.