Steven Johnson is an American popular science writer and media theorist. He was born on June 6, 1968, and grew up in Washington, D.C. He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, and later went on to receive his graduate degree in English Literature from Columbia University. Johnson writes mainly on "the intersection of science, technology and personal experience." His most recent work, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, was the subject of a six-part series on PBS, which he also hosted. His other works include: Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age; Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of… Innovation; The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth of America; and The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic-and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World.