Maine Coastal Program Home Page | Maine Coastline Table of Contents

Tora Johnson

Tora Johnson may be a GIS whiz, but her interests are not limited by the lay of the land, or the sea.

Although she has been doing GIS since 1998, her background is that of a human ecologist. That means she studied a combination of marine and coastal science, political science and anthropology.

Tora Johnson's book, Entanglements.

"Most of my work involves how people make decisions in the coastal and near-coastal region," including the use of maps in decision-making, said Johnson. She began teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine at Machias (UMM) in 2005 and became a full-time faculty member when she received a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2009.

Now in the second year of the NSF grant, Johnson has leveraged more grant money for projects including initiatives with kids and teachers, and research on teaching and learning GIS. She earned her B.S. from the University of Oregon and a master's in Philosophy from the College of the Atlantic. She holds a U.S. Coast Guard captain's license to operate vessels up to 100 tons

Her seagoing experience includes teaching and crewing on large New England sailing vessels and a stint commerial fishing out of Alaska.She, her husband and 4-year-old son spend lots of time in their 41-foot sailboat.

Title: Director of Geographic Information Systems, University of Maine at Machias.

The year 2005 was a busy one for Johnson. Besides joining UMM, she wrote Entanglements: The Intertwined Fates of Whales and Fishermen, a book that explores the relationships between fishermen, scientists and whale advocates enmeshed in attempts to save and protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, published by the University Press of Florida. The book is still in print. Johnson said she chose the name of the website dedicated to the book, with pun intended: entanglements.net.

Back: Profiles: Judy East | Next: Harness the Wind and the Tide