Steven Berlin Johnson
Author, The Ghost Map

Steven Johnson is a cross-disciplinary thinker who applies broad-ranging research and critical thinking to interesting social problems and comes up with intriguing and important insights into how we live and learn, work and play. Both social critic and technologist, he's written several popular books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience, three of them national bestsellers. His writings have influenced everything from the way political campaigns use the Internet, to cutting-edge ideas in urban planning, to the battle against 21st-century terrorism.

His most recent book, published in October 2006, is The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. This gripping account of the 1854 cholera epidemic in London and its real-life hero contains lessons for us about some of the issues that define the modern world.

Johnson was co-founder and editor-in-chief of FEED, the revolutionary web magazine blending technology, science and culture. He is a contributing editor to Wired magazine and writes the monthly "Emerging Technology" column for Discover magazine.