Barbara Rose Johnston is the Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Political Ecology (Santa Cruz, California) and Michigan State University Adjunct Professor of Anthropology.

An environmental anthropologist, her research explores linkages between environmental crisis and human rights abuse, seeking acknowledgment and implementation of the right to a healthy environment, environmental equity, and the right to reparation and remedy. She has served as a scientific advisor in a number of forums, including the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur mechanism, US Environmental Protection Agency, Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, the World Commission on Dams, and UNESCO International Hydrological Programme's Expert Panel on Water and Cultural Diversity. This work has help inform foundational publications, including: Who Pays the Price? The Sociocultural Context fo Environmental Crisis (1994), Water, Culture Power: Local Struggles in a Global Context (1997); Consequential Damages of Nuclear War – The Rongelap Report (Left Coast Press 2008); Life and Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment and Social Justice, 2nd edition (Left Coast Press, 2011); and Water, Cultural Diversity and Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? (UNESCO & Springer, 2012).