Byron Johnson

Byron Johnson is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University where he is the founding director of the Institute for Studies of Religion as well as the founding director of the Institute for Global Human Flourishing. He co-directs the Global Flourishing Study, a five-year longitudinal data collection and research collaboration between researchers at Baylor University and Harvard University, in partnership with Gallup and the Center for Open Science (COS). Johnson is also a senior scientist at Gallup, faculty affiliate at Harvard and Visiting Distinguished Professor at Pepperdine. A leading authority on the scientific study of religion, the efficacy of faith-based organizations and criminal justice, he has authored over 300 publications. His work explores the role of faith in addressing addiction, crime and social welfare, and includes books such as More God, Less Crime (2011) and The Faith Factor and Social Welfare (2025).