Lara Siree Johnson is deputy director for the center-left environmental litigation nonprofit EarthRights International (ERI) and a former ERI board member. Prior to that, she was senior development officer for the Rocky Mountain Institute. From 2008 to 2014, she was regional coordinator for George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF).

Lara Siree Johnson is deputy director for the left-of-center environmentalist litigation nonprofit EarthRights International (ERI) and a former ERI board member. Prior to that, she was senior development officer for the Rocky Mountain Institute. From 2008 to 2014, she was regional coordinator for George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF). ¹

Background

Johnson grew up in Carbondale, Colorado. She attended the University of Colorado Boulder where she attained a BS in Environmental Conservation. Johnson spent one year of college studying in Thailand and earned a certificate in Thai Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She returned to Thailand for two years to work as a research assistant after graduating. She then got a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins. ²

In 1996, Johnson established Tribal Finder Inc., a “fair trade” business based on the export of goods manufactured by women in Thailand. In 2004, the business ceased operating, and Johnson began working for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, for which she established a research office in Thailand. ³

Advocacy Work

While at Boulder, Johnson was a member of the Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CO-PIRG), the Colorado state affiliate of US-PIRG, a federation of state-based left-of-center advocacy groups founded by Ralph Nader. ⁴

In 2008, Johnson left Johns Hopkins to work as regional coordinator for George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. She used her Thai experiences to coordinate their grant-making for the Foundations’ Southeast Asia Initiative and Beyond Borders Program. She left the organization in 2014. ⁵

After a two-year stint in international consulting, Johnson returned to political work at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based environmentalist think-thank, as an internationally focused senior development officer. ⁶

In 2017, Johnson joined the board of directors of EarthRights International, a left-of-center environmental litigation nonprofit. ⁷ In May 2019, she stepped down from the board and became deputy director of the organization. ⁸

1. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
2. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
3. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
4. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
5. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
6. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
7. “Lara Siree Johnson” Linkedin. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.linkedin.com/in/larasireejohnson/.
8. “Lara Johnson.” EarthRights International. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://earthrights.org/about/team/lara-johnson/.