After earning a bachelor's degree in zoology in England, Ian Johnston came to the United States for graduate study. At UCLA he worked on the biology of tropical reef-building corals which took him to underwater sites in such places as Jamaica, Hawaii, and Micronesia. He followed his doctorate with a postdoctoral fellowship at the UCLA Medical School in immunology.

After 7 years at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, he joined the Bethel Biology Department in 1988. His professional interests are the microbial landscapes on the surfaces of reef-coral tissues in relation to coral disease; the conservation and stewardship of coral reefs in the tropics, particularly in the Philippines and Belize ; and interactions between science and Christian faith, especially in the area of general revelation encoded in the natural world.

Dr. Johnston teaches BIO207 Microbiology, BIO306 Vertebrate Histology, and BIO495 Biology Senior Seminar.  Dr. Johnston also teaches in Belize with the Creation Care Study Program.